April 5 – May 12, 2018
COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada
↓ InformationCurated by Ashton Cooper
Opening reception: Thursday April 5, 6-8pm
COOPER COLE is pleased to present Terribly Vulnerable and Terribly Hard, a group exhibition curated by Ashton Cooper.
In James Baldwin’s 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room, the ill-fated lovers David and Giovanni first meet in a fictional Parisian gay bar that serves as a major setting in the book. Among the bar’s regulars are “the usual, knife-blade lean, tight trousered boys” who Baldwin describes as having “something behind their eyes at once terribly vulnerable and terribly hard.” In considering these policed and unacceptable bodies, Baldwin employs a complex characterization that complicates a straightforward understanding of vulnerability. In intertwining vulnerability with hardness, he allows each term to exceed their oppositional meanings. Their hardness is fragile; their vulnerability is tough.
Further, it is not just Baldwin’s characters that complicate our understanding of vulnerability, but his act of writing the book itself. It is with almost improbable vulnerability and strength that Baldwin chose to publish Giovanni’s Room as a successful young writer and black queer man in the segregated mid-50s. Using the characters in the gay bar — which include our closeted protagonist David, bartender Giovanni, the tight trousered boys, “paunchy gentleman,” “les folles,” and others — Baldwin illustrates a wide spectrum of hardness and vulnerability in which some have more room to be vulnerable while for others it may prove lethal.
Baldwin provokes the question: can vulnerability be used for the purpose of resistance? In a 1984 panel discussion, Gayatri Spivak characterized the deconstructionist project — which, broadly, is dedicated to challenging metanarratives and scientific rationality — as “a radical acceptance of vulnerability.” For Spivak, the project of rejecting mastery is defined by relinquishing control of monolithic narratives and embracing unknowability. In this way, Spivak provides an interesting lens through which to consider the formal choices that artists might make to reject masterful vision, conclusive narratives, and binary definitions.
In her 2016 essay Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance, Judith Butler transforms an understanding of vulnerability from being a form of weakness or passivity to being a necessary and radical element of resisting power in a marginalized body. She writes: “I want to argue against the notion that vulnerability is the opposite of resistance. Indeed, I want to argue affirmatively that vulnerability, understood as a deliberate exposure to power, is part of the very meaning of political resistance as an embodied enactment.”
Following the propositions of Baldwin, Spivak, and Butler, the works in this exhibition materialize both strength and vulnerability and frame the body as a site of resistance. Across several drawings, the undressed body is treated with both humor and reverence. Fragile materials rub up against asphalt and paving stones. The landscape is destabilized; holes act as structural markers; metal is twisted and torn; vessels and flora dematerialize. They are at once terribly vulnerable and terribly hard.
To learn more about this exhibition, please provide your contact information.
Alicia McCarthy
Untitled
Untitled, 2018
Pencil and spray paint on construction paper
Katherine Hubbard
Untitled (Same sight invert)
Untitled (Same sight invert), 2014
Silver gelatin print
Katherine Hubbard
Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 3 of 10
Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 3 of 10, 2016
Silver gelatin print
Chloe Seibert
Sad Demon
Sad Demon, 2016
Pigmented plaster and wire mesh
Jimmy Wright
Roses
Roses, 1993/2016
Oil on canvas
Pati Hill
Untitled (paving stone)
Untitled (paving stone), 1981-1983
Pati Hill
Untitled (building fragment; Grand Trianon)
Untitled (building fragment; Grand Trianon), 1981-1983
Kerry Downey
How to see in the dark, Part I
How to see in the dark, Part I, 2017
Graphite and collage on paper
Dana DeGiulio
Mutter
Mutter, 2018
Oil on panel
Dana DeGiulio
All glass year
All glass year, 2018
Oil on panel
Dana DeGiulio
Ecce Mono
Ecce Mono, 2015
Oil on panel
Harmony Hammond
Bandaged Grid #2
Bandaged Grid #2, 2016
Oil and mixed media on canvas
Harmony Hammond
Rim Series #6
Rim Series #6, 2011
Monotype on paper
Jibz Cameron
Kill All Men (lesbian in hot tub)
Kill All Men (lesbian in hot tub), 2018
Ink on paper
Jibz Cameron
Gender Traitor
Gender Traitor, 2018
Ink on paper
Chrisina Quarles
Untitled (100 Series)
Untitled (100 Series), 2014
Ink on paper
Sam Vernon
Ghosts
Ghosts, 2009
Pen and ink, xeroxed
Sam Vernon
Legs
Legs, 2009
Pen and ink, xeroxed
Anna Sew Hoy
Circuit
Circuit, 2007
Denim, t shirt, wood, paint, flocking and polyurethane foam
Mira Dancy
Bend
Bend, 2018
Vinyl
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
Dimensions variable
Mira Dancy
Cobra
Cobra, 2017
Acrylic on paper
Mira Dancy
Herfume Him
Herfume Him, 2014
Acrylic on paper
