Artist: Vijay Masharani, Justine Neuberger, Louis Osmosis
Exhibition title: Free Fall
Curated by: Quinn Schoen
Venue: Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles, US
Date: January 16 – March 7, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Martos Gallery
Free Fall revolves around the notion of the free fall, and the sensations of groundlessness and disorientation that spring from it. The exhibition features three artists, Vijay Masharani (b. 1995), Justine Neuberger (b. 1993), and Louis Osmosis (b. 1996), who each grapple with disruption as a generative conceptual and compositional mode. Through painting, audio, sculpture, and drawing, they explore frantic, promising new relations between space and temporality. “In falling,” writes Hito Steyerl, “the lines of the horizon shatter, twirl around, and superimpose,” and its symptom is not one of collapsing but, rather, of floating – an extra-worldly suspension in which time thickens, fused to motion.[1] Perspectives shatter, and modes of seeing are transformed and invigorated. This lack of horizon is both destructive and productive: to fall is a state of activation.
[1] Hito Steyerl, “In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective,” e-flux journal, issue 24 (April 2011).
– Quinn Schoen
Vijay Masharani (b. 1995) is an artist and writer. He lives and works in Queens, New York. His two-person exhibitions include #38: Gas, Honey with Raza Kazmi at Museum Gallery, New York (2019) and It Might Be Warm But It’s Not Clean with Trisha Cheeney at High-Tide, Philadelphia (2017). Select group exhibitions include Still Life at Drawer NYC (2020), Bangalore Flat at Home Sweet Home, Bangalore (2019), U:L:O at Interstate Projects, Brooklyn (2019), Pig Latin In Quicksand at Clima, Milan (2019), and Pure Raw at RESORT, Baltimore (2018). His writing has appeared in X—TRA Online, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, and ARTnews.
Justine Neuberger (b. 1993) lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and New York. She received her BA in Studio Art and Art History at Oberlin College in 2015 and her MA in TESOL in 2019. Her recent exhibitions include a solo show at 15 Orient, New York (2019) and a two-person show, Night Shift, with Yasmin Kaytmaz at 17 Essex, New York (2020).
Louis Osmosis (b. 1996) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture, drawing, performance, and video. He received his BFA in 2018 from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art. His recent exhibitions include This is your captain speaking with Thomas Blair at Gymnasium, New York (2020).
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Free Fall, 2021, exhibition view, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles
Justine Neuberger, The Swan (no. 17), 2020, Oil on canvas, 24 × 24 inches (60.96 × 60.96 cm)
Installation view: Free Fall, STL LA, 2021
Vijay Masharani, 4 generations bum tickers (Mum’s Side). so, I’m eating around the yolks, across the board, through it. Out, 2020, Graphite on paper, 9 × 12 inches (22.86 × 30.48 cm) (framed)
Justine Neuberger, Time Fetish 2, 2020, Oil on canvas, 29 × 18 inches (73.66 × 45.72 cm)
Justine Neuberger, If your memory serves you well, 2020, Oil on canvas, 29 × 20 inches (73.66 × 50.80 cm)
Vijay Masharani, ¡t’s the alt-r¡ght r¡ck rub¡n, 2020, Graphite on paper, 9 × 12 inches (22.86 × 30.48 cm) (framed)
Justine Neuberger, Scroll of Fire (after Bialik), 2020, Oil on canvas, 34 × 72 inches (86.36 × 182.88 cm)
Louis Osmosis, Satellite, 2020, Plasma-cut satellite, 43 × 30 × 26 inches (109.22 × 76.20 × 66.04 cm)
Louis Osmosis, One Hundred Dollars (Money Heart), 2020. Dollar bills, papier-mâché, polyurethane foam