Raque Ford infuses abstraction with narrative potential, producing layered works that explore how identity is crafted from the remnants of popular culture. Known for her distinctive way of working with materials, Ford troubles the line between formal registers, using reflective acrylic and transparent mylar, welded steel chains, and laser-cut text. Her high-gloss surfaces are incised with spidery script that quotes from a wide range of sources: pop song lyrics, snippets of con-versation, excerpts from fiction, and diaristic jottings. The exhibition Cry Baby fills the space of KUNSTVEREIN GARTENHAUS with sculptural objects, and haunting language while collapsing the boundaries between private and collective, personal and social, opening new relational dimensions.
A new Wild Seeds publication #4, Cry Baby, collecting Ford’s poetry and writing will accompany the exhibition and launch on the opening night.
Raque Ford (b. 1986, Columbia, Maryland) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. A public artwork by Ford commis-sioned by the Whitney Museum is now on view through March of 2025. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include Kunst-verein Gartenhaus, Vienna, opening in 2025, and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, opening in 2025. Recent solo presentations include The Print Center, Philadelphia (2023); Good Weather, Chicago (2023); Greene Naftali, New York (2022, 2020); 321 Gallery, Brooklyn (2019); CAPITAL, San Francisco (2017); and Shoot the Lobster, New York (2017). Sig-nificant group shows include Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo (2022); MoMA PS1, New York (2021); Morán Morán, Mexico City (2021); Kai Matsumiya, New York (2019); Roberta Pelan, Toronto (2017); SculptureCenter, Queens (2016); and Divi-sion Gallery, Montréal (2016). Ford’s work is in the collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
