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August NIAD Gallery Reception // “Object Inside Object Outside Inside Object Outside Object”
August 19, 2023, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm
August NIAD Gallery Reception //
OBJECT INSIDE
OBJECT OUTSIDE
INSIDE OBJECT
OUTSIDE OBJECT
organized by GGLA
Gallery Reception + Artist Talk // Saturday August 19, 1 to 4pm
Exhibition on view Thursday August 10 to Friday September 22, 2023
NIAD is pleased to present a group exhibition curated by GGLA.
Participating Artists
Andrew Sungtaek
Nick Makanna
Kayla Mattes
Mansur Nurullah
William Scott
Jose Joaquin Figueroa
Jerry Pena
Oliver Hawk
Aaron Estrada
Paige Valentine
*NIAD artists
About the Exhibition
Paintings and photographs are often perceived as portals. Their magic is that they can take us someplace. Hung in a room they provide a view: be it of a landscape, portrait, interior, or abstraction, be it to another time or an inward perspective, be it of another reality or a reflection of where we are.
The power of a sculpture is similar, but also transitional. It exists in relation to our discoveries of it, and its story adapts to the settings it visits, which can be indoors, out in nature, or even in mutable locations that bridge a sense of inside and out.
Subjects in a 2D work of art abide by the laws of their plane. A dog in a painting is “small” if it sits comfortably in the lap of a person in the same painting, regardless of that painting’s size. Our response to sculptural works however—and for that matter, to objects in general—comes from the body. The sculpture itself is miniature, life size, or giant depending on how we cast it in relation to our understanding of similar objects.
The objects in this exhibition are particularly relatable. They bear the marks of a thing that is reaching out to meet us. Many of them have a toe in the worlds of painting and some from the experiences of digital screens, but through the attentions of their makers they’ve nudged their way into our dimension. What’s more, they come to us with a lexicon of functions we’ve participated in.
Because of this effort which lives in the object, We empathize with them. We recognize their aspirations: to have a compressed experience inflated, realized, or empowered.
It is much like the story about a child’s toy, a velveteen rabbit that longs to become real so it may leave the safety of an interior world and have sensory encounters. It is a journey that (within the framework of this fairytale) any object could tackle if a person imbues that object with the wear and tenderness of attention.
These works relate such encounters. They alternately reward and/or frustrate our expectations by refiguring the patterns and memories we associate with their shapes, images, and language.
Whether they are imbued with hope, sarcasm, anxiety, love, absurdity, or concern, each of them teeters between being an object that protects and comforts and one that needs protection and comforting. Thus, they reflect those fluctuating aspects and capacities in ourselves.
About GGLA
GGLA is a contemporary art gallery in Los Angeles, California, run and founded by Andres Guerrero. GGLA focuses on uplifting underheard voices, promoting diversity and intersectionality, and the strengthening connections between artists and communities.
Accessibility
There are no stairs to enter the NIAD Art Center building. The building is one level. The sidewalk has multiple curb cut-outs and is wide enough for a wheelchair. The building does not have automatic doors. Our restrooms are accessible to people using mobility devices. We have gender neutral restrooms.
Please send accessibility requests to gallery@niadart.org