Attentive to the ways in which artists monitor, contemplate, and intervene in societies as they change, Wild Frictions brings together works that reflect some of the anxieties, disruptions, and tensions which arose or intensified during 2020. Using sculpture, text, video, sound, digital media, and performance, the artists in this exhibition apply strategies of interruption and obstruction to a critique of the grand narratives, oppressive systems, and unconscious, sometimes violent, organizing rituals that characterize everyday life. The presented works, though made predominantly prior to the pandemic and social uprisings of the past year, resonate with feelings of disruption, alienation, and loss of control that have accompanied recent and ongoing shutdowns, quarantines, and economic pauses.

A special issue of the periodical The Third Rail offers the opportunity to engage with the exhibition’s themes in print and online. The publication features contributions by many of the participating artists, as well as newly commissioned texts by literary theorist Emily Apter (on the art of impasse), design polymath Prem Krishnamurthy (on “bumpiness”), and curator Legacy Russell (on “digital virality and intimacy”), among others.

Wild Frictions is produced in collaboration with Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin, where an iteration of the exhibition is on view June 25–August 22, 2021.

Artists

PressForPractice, Ouecha, Félicia Atkinson, Trisha Baga, Jesse Darling, Constant Dullaart, Nikita Gale, keyon gaskin, Steffani Jemison, Kahlil Joseph, Klara Lidén, Hanne Lippard, Jesse Ly, Laure Prouvost, Jimmy Robert, Sable Elyse Smith, Christine Sun Kim, Pilvi Takala, Nora Turato

Curated by

Amara Antilla, Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati and Sandra Teitge, Guest Curator

Supported by