Asking for a Friend
Asking For a Friend unites four artists over the age of fifty: Lydia Viscardi, Silvana Soriano, Heidi Hankaniemi, and Joan Wheeler. The exhibition borrows from the familiar mechanism of an advice column鈥攚ith a twist鈥攗sing distinct bodies of work to explore questions of love, pride, fear, and autonomy as a form of allyship and emotional community-building.
The tradition of an advice column evokes a particular type of desperation, namely to resolve a problem with the guidance of an objective, verified advice-giver. The questions posed in these columns range from the practical to the existential鈥� laundering, gardening, housekeeping, conflict, loneliness, and self-esteem. Is it possible to get blood out of white fabric? How can I improve my relationship with my mother? What should I say to my awful neighbor the next time she says my shoes are ugly? How do I combat the persistent, existential dread coursing through my veins?
Asking For a Friend celebrates the ways in which women take care of one another, explicitly pushing past the woes of a blossoming generation to be inclusive of trans-generational perspectives and experiences. The exhibition functions as a space wherein one can navigate personal and communal hardships: how to grieve; celebrate small victories; find courage; get rich; start over; accept reality; dream.
At the same time, however, this exhibition is a lament for the cultural shift away鈥攏ot from advice columns in essence, but from communal wisdom toward hyper-independence, isolating entire networks of women from community-oriented practices. Columns of the past featured tips to better one鈥檚 housekeeping, sex life, or beauty, and were, admittedly, sometimes perpetuating harmful, gendered cultural attitudes. Nonetheless, the idea of an advice column speaks to an intellectual and spiritual bond between women, especially between women in different stages of life; these relationships do exist for most women, and are often confined to the familial sphere.
Through garments, conceptual textile sculpture, object assemblages, and collaging, this exhibition takes root in a need for considerate and compassionate pathways toward learning. Asking For a Friend invites visitors to step away from doomscrolling, internet rabbit holes, and internal monologues of quiet panic to find sanctuary in shared experience鈥攚ithin communities, within art spaces, and within one another.
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Asking For a Friend unites four artists over the age of fifty: Lydia Viscardi, Silvana Soriano, Heidi Hankaniemi, and Joan Wheeler. The exhibition borrows from the familiar mechanism of an advice column鈥攚ith a twist鈥攗sing distinct bodies of work to explore questions of love, pride, fear, and autonomy as a form of allyship and emotional community-building.
The tradition of an advice column evokes a particular type of desperation, namely to resolve a problem with the guidance of an objective, verified advice-giver. The questions posed in these columns range from the practical to the existential鈥� laundering, gardening, housekeeping, conflict, loneliness, and self-esteem. Is it possible to get blood out of white fabric? How can I improve my relationship with my mother? What should I say to my awful neighbor the next time she says my shoes are ugly? How do I combat the persistent, existential dread coursing through my veins?
Asking For a Friend celebrates the ways in which women take care of one another, explicitly pushing past the woes of a blossoming generation to be inclusive of trans-generational perspectives and experiences. The exhibition functions as a space wherein one can navigate personal and communal hardships: how to grieve; celebrate small victories; find courage; get rich; start over; accept reality; dream.
At the same time, however, this exhibition is a lament for the cultural shift away鈥攏ot from advice columns in essence, but from communal wisdom toward hyper-independence, isolating entire networks of women from community-oriented practices. Columns of the past featured tips to better one鈥檚 housekeeping, sex life, or beauty, and were, admittedly, sometimes perpetuating harmful, gendered cultural attitudes. Nonetheless, the idea of an advice column speaks to an intellectual and spiritual bond between women, especially between women in different stages of life; these relationships do exist for most women, and are often confined to the familial sphere.
Through garments, conceptual textile sculpture, object assemblages, and collaging, this exhibition takes root in a need for considerate and compassionate pathways toward learning. Asking For a Friend invites visitors to step away from doomscrolling, internet rabbit holes, and internal monologues of quiet panic to find sanctuary in shared experience鈥攚ithin communities, within art spaces, and within one another.
Artists on show
