Mythos
Curated by Ana Benaroya
Adler Beatty Gallery, New York
April 18 – June 10, 2023
Adler Beatty presents Mythos, a group exhibition curated by Ana Benaroya (b. 1986). Participing artistes are Ana Benaroya, Felipe Baeza (b. 1987), Leyla Faye, Austin Lee (b. 1983), Anna Park (b. 1996), with engravings by Jan Harmensz Muller (1571-1628) and Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617).
The world of myth, one filled with body-gorgeous gods and goddesses, occupies the pages of these Netherlandish Mannerist engravings; their bodies elongated, distorted, and stylized. The perspectival landscape is flattened and compositional choices become more decorative. Cross-hatching and line work precisely shape each muscle bulge, each tuft of flowing hair and floating cloud.
The narratives portrayed in these engravings are violent and passionately chaotic, the gods are flawed like mere mortals. Their stories are not forgotten but infrequently referenced by many contemporary artists especially when compared to the art of the past or the lineage of Western art. Whereas social commentary of the past is focused on the biblical and mythological, today’s artists look to contemporary life and the reality they occupy as a source for new myth-making.
With a series of Netherlandish engravings as a point of departure, artists working today have been asked to respond with their own voice and vision. All the artists invited to use the transformative power of imagination and fantasy to depict contemporary life through their own lens. Through the new work created for this group show, we might begin to understand how myth has stayed with us, how it has evolved into many voices and stories, and how so many contemporary stylizations of the figure have a conversation with the exaggerations seen in Mannerism.
ADLER BEATTY
34 East 69th Street, New York, NY 10021
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