Group Exhibitions

New. New York
Essl Museum Contemporary Art
Klosterneuburg, Austria
 November 23, 2012 – April 1, 2013

Curated by John Silvis

Images Courtesy of Essl Museum of Art

Curated by artist and curator John Silvis, NEW. NEW YORK spotlighted 19 emerging voices from New York City’s contemporary art scene, with a strong emphasis on the dynamic and experimental spirit of Bushwick. Set in the private Essl Museum outside of Vienna, the show formed part of the museum’s “Emerging Artists” series, which aimed to highlight global innovation in visual art.

We were invited to participate during a time when we were creating deeply personal works reflecting on our teenage years. For the exhibition, we contributed a towering sculpture titled Shaboygen—a black monolith composed of four distinct landscape-based works that could stack vertically or be laid out as individual vignettes. Originally constructed from cardboard, the piece was emade in plywood and upholstered in black ultrasuede. Our fear that  its monumental scale would lead to eventual  collapse compelled us to fabricate our first piece in this sturdier form.

Each of the four landscapes captured a facet of our high school experiences. One section, Wagon on Fire, recalled the moment our station wagon burst into flames near the football bleachers, to the chants of "burn, burn, burn." This landscape—tonal reds layered with beaded smoke and tufts of Angora bunny hair—evoked the fear, chaos, and drama of that memory.

Through Shaboygen, we explored the intersection of vulnerability and memory, turning personal history into art on a monumental scale. The experience of showing in Austria among a cohort of boundary-pushing New York artists was unforgettable—a moment of international visibility during a time of artistic transformation.

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