ZAMUNDA FOREVER, Thania Petersen’s first solo exhibition in the States, is divided into three bodies of intricately embroidered narrative textiles, covering her family’s history, their present-day life as seen from the outside, then finally portrayals of their familial dynamic in more personal settings. Juxtaposed against one another, the three series are an honest depiction of how the journey that brought the artist’s people to South Africa resulted in a separation of selves that exist symbiotically to construct a new cohesive and contemporary identity.

Rampie and Layer, 2023, and The Tide Spits, 2023, the two pieces that comprise the first body of work, speak of the artist’s ancestral routes that led her people to South Africa. Through symbols evocative of Sufi ceremonies and mythologies intrinsic to the culture, the textiles colorfully encompass tales of empire, forced migration across the Indian Ocean, the spice trade, royals, love, loss, and exiles of the past.

The second series cheekily toys with what Petersen calls the “Zamundafication” of Africa. (Zamunda is the fictional African nation from which Eddie Murphy’s character hails in the 1988 film Coming to America.) In these large-scale works, the artist reckons with the hyper-commercialization of her native continent, and the semi-truthfulness of the signifiers both Westerners and Africans use to market themselves to one another—her sons cosplay as Ninja Turtles, gorge themselves on fast food and candy, and sprint through themed waterparks dressed in Vans and Adidas. Specifically, the textiles challenge Hollywood stereotypes of Africa, and confront ideas both homegrown and imported from abroad that dictate what it means to be African. 

The third group of works are comprised of smaller-scale, intimate portraits of Petersen’s family at home—sincere, touching moments of life behind closed doors, which could take place in any country or continent. Bicycle, 2023, Family, 2023, and Cake, 2023 are tender snapshots that would be at home in any family photo album. Petersen’s family is your family, her home is yours.

Taken together, ZAMUNDA FOREVER, like Petersen herself, embodies the plural histories, spiritualities, sonorities, and cultures of the Afrasiatic Sea. Also ever present: the universal and readily identifiable signs of a family and community that lives, laughs, and loves with one another.

More information on the event can be found here.

Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are delighted to announce the representation of Martine Syms and present the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. The exhibition Loser Back Home will premiere her latest works in video, sculpture, painting and photography. Garnering widespread attention for her work that combines conceptual grit, humor and social commentary, Syms has emerged in recent years as one of the defining artists of her generation. Sprüth Magers is pleased to be representing Syms in collaboration with Sadie Coles HQ and Bridget Donahue.

The show's title, Loser Back Home, deliberates upon "dysplacement," a term created by historian Barbara Fields to describe the destruction of place and the loss of a shared sense of connection to one’s familiar or home country. In one of Syms’ new video works, This Is A Studio (2023), the artist uses surveillance footage that captures a late-night police visit. This document raises questions about home, belonging and systems of power—concerns that reappear across the exhibition.

In another new video, the two-channel i am wise enough to die things go (2023), Syms explores the idea of psychosis through an unnamed protagonist reciting a monologue. Responding to the work of iconic animator Chuck Jones, Syms transfers the form and narrative structure of an animated short into live-action. Working with the inherent challenges and restrictions brought about by this sort of translation, she delves into both the breaking up of images and the breakdown of the psyche. Through a series of visual gags and special effects, and an original score, the work evokes the experience of disorientation that results from being ungrounded.

Clothes, which Syms often designs herself, offer the Los Angeles-based artist a further medium through which to examine the figure. Historically, the fields of sewing, film editing and computer programming are linked; all were initially considered monotonous and menial work and, therefore, positions often occupied by women. In i am wise enough to die things go, the actor wears a T-shirt that reads “To Hell With My Suffering”—a piece of clothing that has been worn by Syms’ digital avatars in previous videos. In reference to an Arthur Rimbaud poem on freedom and the discrepancy between desire and reality, the T-shirt defiantly declares “Being patient and being bored / Are too simple. To the devil with my cares.” For her textile paintings, an array of previously worn garments—including screen-printed T-shirts, baseball caps and sweatshirts, some branded with high fashion labels—are stitched together into tapestries and stretched over metal frames. Taking on a totemic quality, the paintings become offerings of past, projected and shadow selves.

More information on the event can be found here.

Roberts Projects is pleased to present the gallery’s first exhibition with artist Suchitra Mattai, In the absence of power, In the presence of love. The show presents new mixed-media paintings, tapestries, and a soft-sculpture installation that evoke the artist’s Indo-Caribbean heritage. Mattai’s work engages with the subject and form of European pastoral landscapes and figuration as well as Indian miniature paintings. Linking craft-based processes, sumptuous weavings and traditional techniques, the artist portrays resolute brown heroines, replacing heroes and colonizers and reclaiming a patriarchal past.

The artist’s ancestral history informs her dialogue with European painting. Mattai’s great-grandparents were brought from the state of Uttar Pradesh, India to Guyana, South America as indentured laborers under British colonial rule. Guyana, South America, is considered part of the Caribbean due to its shared history, culture, and proximity. When slavery ended in the Caribbean in the 1800s, the British looked to their largest colony, India, to find laborers to work the sugar plantations.

Mattai describes her process as one of “brown reclamation,” reworking original images to tell new stories. Embroidery, needlepoint, beading and found objects insert women’s handiwork into the traditional painterly landscapes. In other works, the heroic stories, figures, animals, patterns, and landscapes of Indian miniature paintings are reconfigured. Here, the heroes are replaced by heroines—empowered and mythic, yet empathetic and accessible. They are peaceful warriors and include both the young and the old. In Future Tense (2023), a woman quietly reads of the future surrounded by floral needlepoints and a black beaded halo, combining myth, memory, and folktales.

More information on the event can be found here.

Anything can happen in a Los Angeles living room--and for 30 days this summer, anything will. Both a group exhibit and a continuous series of events, The [LA] Living Room will be a home for creative experiments from a disparate cross-section of Los Angeles artists and performers. Like any living room it will be a place to work, to play, to display, to discuss, to practice, present, hear, speak, plan, improvise, create and destroy. Curated by Daniela Soberman.

Creators [Objects}: objet A.D, Jorin Bossen, ABDA Collective, Randy Colosky, Valentina Elise, Brante Flores, Maya Fuhr + Eating Black Feathers, Trulee Hall, Andrew Hunczak, Alvaro Ilizarbe, Ira Ingram, James Jean, Danny McCaw, Jacky Perez, Max Presneill, Jon Pylypchuk, Owen Rundquist, Sawa, Beatrice Schleyer, Steven Schmidt, Zak Smith, Daniela Soberman, Nellie King Solomon, Curtis Stage, Kayla Tange, Liz Walsh, Steven Wolkoff.

Creators [Performers/Events]: Alexus, Justin Asher, Christy Roberts Berkowitz, Zoë Blair-Schlagenhauf, Freak Daddy
The Cupcake Girls, Amanda Gonzalez, Garrett J Gray, Gem Evans, Ian Hawk + Friends, Masha Ko & Kolten Horner, Laena Myers-Ionita, Master K, Faery Mercury, Equity Strippers Noho, Noise Pup, Alma Ruiz, Kait Schuster, Eternity Sky, Ssippi, Kelly Stark, Sovereign Syre, Young Tseng, M Wong, Yams.

More information on the event can be found here.

A group show benefitting Equity Strippers Noho with Rachid Bouhamidi, Amitis Motevalli, Katherina Olschbaur, Cynthia Herrera, Kyle Ranson and Kayla Tange .

"As an act of friendship and solidarity with Equity Strippers NOHO and in an effort to bridge artist communities with those of organized labor, LAST Projects Gallery is pleased to present " Strip Down, Rise Up!", an exhibition of works by Rachid Bouhamidi, Amitis Motevalli, Katherina Olschbaur, Cynthia Herrera, Kyle Ranson and Kayla Tange.

Inspired by the historic actions of striptease dancers who went on strike for seven months in 2022 in North Hollywood and their struggle for a safe workplace and equitable treatment by their employers, these artists have created works that attempt to illuminate the creative labor and ingenuity of exotic dancers which, like other forms of sex work, is often denigrated and cast in to the shadow of social life. From depictions of the vibrant sites of street theater on the picket line to candid portraits that aim to humanize and personalize the struggle of women and men engaged in what is often considered marginalized labor, the exhibition is conceived of as both an acknowledgement of the ongoing fight for a safer working environment by a vulnerable segment of working people and as a celebration of the gains made by the only union of exotic dancers in the country." - Rachid Bouhamidi

More information on the event can be found here.