Water Works
Water Works is a group exhibition curated by Danielle Wu that brings together six artists who turn to the washroom as an aesthetic resource: Hana Al-Saadi, Laurie Kang, Ajay Kurian, Mia Raadik, Pauline Shaw, and HaeAhn Woo Kwon. Whether inside the sauna, the hammam, the beauty salon, or the shower, the act of washing oneself has served as grounds to destabilize bodily integrity.
As a phrase that references both civic irrigation systems and a crying fit, Water Works draws a line between one鈥檚 own flesh and the broader, social body. The 鈥渃ultivation of oneself,鈥� as Michel Foucault observed, despite its occurrence in private, is also a deeply social practice that reflects revolving attitudes towards cleanliness, pleasure, health, and morality throughout a range of cultures.
Mia Raadik鈥檚 installation Self-care (2022), comprised of pastel shaving creams bearing similar consistency to cake frosting, lays bare the alluring fantasies that drive the so-called feminist 鈥渟elf care鈥� industry. Also conflating flesh with food is Laurie Kang鈥檚 Bodied, burgeon (2020); using porous materials such as mesh bags and lotus roots inside a steamer filled with a mysterious viscous solvent, the artist asks what possibilities鈥攏aughty or otherwise鈥攁re allowed to materialize under the comforting cloak of vapor?
The exhibition also looks at washing as more literally embedded within artistic processes, such as Pauline Shaw鈥檚 felted work formed from denatured wool that has been soaked in water and reconstituted anew into cell-like arrangements.
Meanwhile, Ajay Kurian and Hana Al-Saadi directly borrow elements from the bath to consider how racial and gendered Otherness supplies the sensual appeal or repulsion in one of the most intimate daily rituals. Kurian鈥檚 Bather (2018) hides a glowing grin behind the veil of a dark shower curtain; its ominous aura emanating from its lack of belonging to any bodily form. Al-Saadi鈥檚 new work Sneaky and Pure (2022) is comprised of silicone casts of handheld bidet sprayers that are ubiquitous to her native Qatar and neighboring regions but are foreign entities in the United States, echoing her personal experience as a visitor traveling abroad.
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Water Works is a group exhibition curated by Danielle Wu that brings together six artists who turn to the washroom as an aesthetic resource: Hana Al-Saadi, Laurie Kang, Ajay Kurian, Mia Raadik, Pauline Shaw, and HaeAhn Woo Kwon. Whether inside the sauna, the hammam, the beauty salon, or the shower, the act of washing oneself has served as grounds to destabilize bodily integrity.
As a phrase that references both civic irrigation systems and a crying fit, Water Works draws a line between one鈥檚 own flesh and the broader, social body. The 鈥渃ultivation of oneself,鈥� as Michel Foucault observed, despite its occurrence in private, is also a deeply social practice that reflects revolving attitudes towards cleanliness, pleasure, health, and morality throughout a range of cultures.
Mia Raadik鈥檚 installation Self-care (2022), comprised of pastel shaving creams bearing similar consistency to cake frosting, lays bare the alluring fantasies that drive the so-called feminist 鈥渟elf care鈥� industry. Also conflating flesh with food is Laurie Kang鈥檚 Bodied, burgeon (2020); using porous materials such as mesh bags and lotus roots inside a steamer filled with a mysterious viscous solvent, the artist asks what possibilities鈥攏aughty or otherwise鈥攁re allowed to materialize under the comforting cloak of vapor?
The exhibition also looks at washing as more literally embedded within artistic processes, such as Pauline Shaw鈥檚 felted work formed from denatured wool that has been soaked in water and reconstituted anew into cell-like arrangements.
Meanwhile, Ajay Kurian and Hana Al-Saadi directly borrow elements from the bath to consider how racial and gendered Otherness supplies the sensual appeal or repulsion in one of the most intimate daily rituals. Kurian鈥檚 Bather (2018) hides a glowing grin behind the veil of a dark shower curtain; its ominous aura emanating from its lack of belonging to any bodily form. Al-Saadi鈥檚 new work Sneaky and Pure (2022) is comprised of silicone casts of handheld bidet sprayers that are ubiquitous to her native Qatar and neighboring regions but are foreign entities in the United States, echoing her personal experience as a visitor traveling abroad.
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