Artist: Dena Yago
Exhibition title: The Lusting Breed
Venue: Bodega, New York, US
Date: February 25 – April 2, 2017
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Bodega, New York
Note: Bodega is now called Derosia: https://www.derosia.nyc/
This exhibition consists of five tableaus made of pressed wool, dyed with natural materials and cut with pressurized water. The images inscribed and materials used were chosen to reflect a few of the ways that women work. Some of these images may look familiar to you: a rendering of Courbet’s The Grain Sifters and The Sleeping Spinner, while some of these scenes may feel familiar to you: women trading in influence, selection, assistance and care by communicating, designing, aiding, sifting, listening, responding, crafting and up-scaling. Like these women, some of you may also be leveraging your ability to engage in this work at a time that fetishizes such modes of production, particularly affective labor (which is often made invisible) and artisanal craft (which is often made hypervisible). These ways that women work are neither universal nor natural. These images are not atemporal or timeless, they are tethered to 1853, 1855, 2017, 2017 and 2017.
Dena Yago (b. 1988, New York, NY) is based in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include Sandy Brown, Berlin; High Art, Paris; Boatos Fine Art, São Paulo; White Flag Library, St. Louis; and Cubitt, London. Recent group exhibitions include Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Warsaw; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Cell Space, London; Studio for Propositional Cinema, Düsseldorf; JTT, New York; and Kunsthalle Bern, Bern.
Dena Yago, The Grain Sifters, 2017, Pressed wool, natural dyes, steel, 73 x 85 x 6 in
Dena Yago, Sleeping Spinner, 2017, Pressed wool, natural dyes, steel, 63 x 79 x 6 in
Dena Yago, The Bins, 2017, Pressed wool, natural dyes, steel, 64 x 79 x 6 in
Dena Yago, The Assistant, 2017, Pressed wool, natural dyes, steel, 53 x 73 x 6 in
Dena Yago, The Influencer, 2017, Pressed wool, natural dyes, cotton mohair steel, with Brittany Mroczek, 54 x 49 x 6 in