Message From a Friend
When conceiving of this show I thought about my previous curatorial experiences. I remembered the way curation for me was a celebration of practices that continue to expand, challenge, and move me. When I co-ran a gallery I regularly did studio visits all over the city. The way I met new artists was most often through suggestions from fellow artists. If I were looking to expand my ideas around sculpture, I would ask an artist friend which four sculptors she is looking at and then visit all four, inevitably finding something that was interesting. Artists look closer, in a more particular, more discerning way, they look in stranger corners, they will go far to experience something that is touching. I listen closely when an artist in my community tells me to look more deeply at a particular piece or at a specific maker. The artists I meet pass along their favorites and their obsessions. This chain grows longer. And these curatorial projects have led to long friendships.
For Studio Archive Project I wanted to highlight individual practices, each a complex universe, which I am paying attention to, with whom I want to sit at the dinner table and talk about art: their conceptual and material concerns, their ideas around history, the ways they transform what they see through making, the intentionality of their choices. This show is like a message from a friend: here are some incredible artists to visit, take a closer look.
– Yevgeniya Baras
