↳ Exhibitions

Red Hills of Lardossa at Tara Downs

June 19, 2017

Artists: Tau Lewis, Erin Jane Nelson, Sojourner Truth Parsons

Exhibition title: Red Hills of Lardossa

Venue: Tara Downs, New York, US

Date: June 2 – 30, 2017

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Tara Downs, New York

Red Hills of Lardossa derives its title from the closing track of Drexciya’s 1994 double vinyl release Drexciya 4: The Unknown Aquazone – Double Aquapack (Detroit: Submerge, 1994. 2x vinyl, 12”, 33 ⅓ RPM). Fantasizing electro music’s infiltration of transatlantic communication streams that echo the passages and conjectural return of the black diaspora, the then-anonymous, Detroit-based duo Drexciya dedicated its liner sleeve notes to speculations about the existence of a race of sea creatures mutated from pregnant African slaves thrown overboard during passage to the Americas. The exhibition comprehends the origins of electro music as a riposte to the decimated living wages and reprobate municipal infrastructure of post-fordist, post-race riots Detroit—taking as its point of departure a will to the remastery of machines sensitized to the continued, technologically-mediated oppression of black bodies.

Synthesizing black diasporic artistic production and conjectural posthuman identities, the works on view manifest aesthetic engagements spanning transoceanic mythologies and techno-organic hybridity anchored by recombinatory compositional logics. Whereas Drexciya’s genus of afrofuturism exalted in musical escapism and the mystical originary locus of an identity formation inflected more by a nebulous mutation than the immanent experience of black embodiment, the exhibition evacuates hierarchies between a pelagic metaphysics and the groundedness of vernacular realities. Instead, noirish atmospherics, mosaiced recuperations of canvas debris, postal scales, secret objects, pigment prints, sousveillance/surveillance anxieties, anecdotes and idle smoking inscribe a feminized repressing of both land-based consciousness and ciphered communications.

Tau Lewis (b. 1993, Toronto; lives and works in Toronto, Canada). Solo and two-person exhibitions: Copper Cole Gallery, Toronto; 8-11 Gallery, Toronto; The Pendulum Project at Studio 223a, Toronto. Recent group exhibitions include: New Museum, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Sleep Center, New York; Galleri Tom Christoffersen, Copenhagen; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Art Gallery of York University, Toronto; 116 Geary Ave, Toronto.

Erin Jane Nelson (b. 1989; lives and works in Atlanta, GA) gained her BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art, New York, and completed studies at The Malmö Art Academy, Malmö. Solo exhibitions: Document, Chicago; Hester, New York; Important Projects, Oakland. Selected group exhibitions: Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago; The Stable, Waregem, Belgium; Ashes/Ashes, Los Angeles; ATLBNL at Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta; Suprainfinit, Bucharest; Honor Fraser, Los Angeles; Galerie Division, Montreal; Springsteen Gallery, Baltimore; Centre for Style, Melbourne; Favorite Goods, Los Angeles; Ellis King, Dublin; Bureau, New York; Bad Reputation, Los Angeles; City Limits, Oakland; Mission Comics and Art, San Francisco; 321 Gallery, Brooklyn; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn; Et Al at The Lab, San Francisco; Jancar Jones; Los Angeles.

Sojourner Truth Parsons (b. 1984, Vancouver; lives and works in Los Angeles) gained her BFA at Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax. Solo exhibitions: Oakville Galleries, Toronto; Tomorrow Gallery, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Phil Gallery, Los Angeles; Mulherin, New York; Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto; 161 Gallon Gallery, Halifax; Seeds Gallery, Halifax; Eyelevel Gallery, Halifax. Recent group exhibitions: 11R, New York; Foxy Production, New York; Galerie Sultana, Paris; 4619, Los Angeles; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Jessica Bradley Gallery, Toronto; Night Gallery with Know More Games, New York.

Sojourner Truth Parsons, Saturday Morning, 2015, Collage and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches / 121,92 x 121,92 cm

Installation View, Red Hills of Lardossa: Tau Lewis, Erin Jane Nelson, Sojourner Truth Parsons, 2017, Downs & Ross (Eldridge), New York

Erin Jane Nelson, HermesSy Mossback, 2017, Pigment prints on silk and cotton, wool, ink, various fabrics, 62 x 40 inches / 132 x 157,5 cm

Sojourner Truth Parsons, You will get old!, 2016, Acrylic, glitter, glue, ash, string, raw pigment, canvas, lavender essence on canvas, 72 x 60 inches / 182,9 x 152,4 cm

Installation View, Red Hills of Lardossa: Tau Lewis, Erin Jane Nelson, Sojourner Truth Parsons, 2017, Downs & Ross (Eldridge), New York

Tau Lewis, Untitled (The Cause and cure is you), 2017, Plaster, cloth, paint, leather, secret objects, Dream Journal, framed watercolor on paper 18 x 60 x 24 inches /, 45,7 x 152,4 x 61 cm (sculpture), 12 x 14 inches / 30,48 x 35,56 cm (framed watercolor on paper), Installation dimensions variable

Tau Lewis, Untitled (The Cause and cure is you), 2017, Plaster, cloth, paint, leather, secret objects, Dream Journal, framed watercolor on paper 18 x 60 x 24 inches / 45,7 x 152,4 x 61 cm (sculpture), 12 x 14 inches / 30,48 x 35,56 cm (framed watercolor on paper), Installation dimensions variable

Installation View, Red Hills of Lardossa: Tau Lewis, Erin Jane Nelson, Sojourner Truth Parsons, 2017, Downs & Ross (Eldridge), New York