Breaking Water | May 06, 2022 | Contemporary Arts Center

Breaking Water is a group exhibition bringing together works in installation, video, photography, painting, sculpture, and performance that offer a range of approaches to the subject of water, liquidity, and feminism. The exhibition will debut four new commissions by Paul Maheke, Josèfa Ntjam, Claudia Peña Salinas, and a collaborative work by Calista Lyon and Carmen Winant, after which the exhibition is titled, alongside new and existing work by an international group of artists whose work explores themes of fluidity, connectivity, and resistance, and addresses timely concerns including water rights, climate change, and the effects of natural disasters. The exhibition will be accompanied by a parallel film screening program and catalogue that extend the exhibition’s central themes.

Explore the catalog

Breaking Water is sponsored by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional funding is provided by Etant Donnés Contemporary Art (Etant donnés Contemporary Art is a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, with support from the French Ministry of Culture, Institut français, Ford Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, CHANEL, and ADAGP), the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Sue Friedlander, and David and Sara Osborn. Annual exhibition support is provided by Gale and Dave Beckett, Jimmy and Lauren Miller, Barbara Weston Sasser and Carol Weston Roberts, Ronnie and John Shore, and the generous contributors to the CAC Exhibition Fund. General operating support for the CAC is provided by ArtsWave, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council.

About the Artist

Martha Atienza (b. 1981, Bantayan, Philippines; lives and works in Bantayan, Philippines)

Marcos Ávila Forero (b. 1983, Paris, France; lives and works in Paris, France)

Cecilia Bengolea (b. 1979, Buenos Aires, Argentina; lives and works in Paris, France)

Andrea Carlson (b. 1979, Grand Portage Ojibwe, USA; lives and works in Chicago, IL)

Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978, London, UK; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA)

Jes Fan (b. 1990, Ontario, Canada; lives and works in New York, NY)

Cleo Fariselli (b. 1982, Cesenatico, Italy; lives and works in Turin, Italy)

Saodat Ismailova (b. 1981, Tashkent, Uzbekistan; lives and works in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and Paris, France)

Jaana Laakkonen (b. 1985, Joensuu, Finland; lives and works in Helsinki, Finland)

Calista Lyon (b. 1986, Nagambie, Australia; lives and works in Charlottesville, VA) and

Carmen Winant (b. 1983, San Francisco, CA; lives and works in Columbus, OH)

Paul Maheke (b. 1985, Brive-la-Gaillarde, France; lives and works in London, UK)

Josèfa Ntjam (b. 1992, Metz, France; lives and works in Saint-Étienne, France)

Claudia Peña Salinas (b. 1975, Montemorelos, Nuevo León, Mexico; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY)

Vian Sora (b. 1976, Baghdad, Iraq; lives and works in Louisville, KY)

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas (collaborators since 1997; live and work in Vilnius, Lithuania and Cambridge, MA)