Not Here, Not Not (gallery)

7th - 25th March 2022
25 East Gallery
New York

Reality is a web of concrete relations. The entities of the environment are nothing but knots in this web, and we ourselves are knots of the same sort. We are linked to these entities; they are there for us. And the entities are linked to us; we are there for them.
- Vilém Flusser, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis

We begin with agaricus bitorquis: a fungal fruiting body erupting through hostile man-made nature to spread its spores. Not Here and Not Not is a show about utilizing natural materials in an environment that has been heavily altered by human intervention. But there’s a catch: even if we disrupt equilibrium and rearrange molecules in a way that is difficult to undo, we, as humans, are nature, and our materials are natural materials. To say that any human-made materials are unnatural would reinforce a colonial distinction between humans and nature. Instead, we have the pavement mushroom, which, as it surfaces into a visible entity, disregards both the ideological and cementitious barriers that humans have formed.

To say that all materials are natural materials, however, is not to say that materiality is inconsequential. We are inextricably bound to our environment, and the material decisions we make–or don’t make–matter. The included artists intentionally utilize nontraditional art materials and methods, caring not only about the final artwork you see in the gallery, but also that which composes it. The resultant weaving of Not Here and Not Not is warped with standard art-making techniques and weft with practices such as foraging, oxidization, decay, and drying.

Participating Artists: Emanuel Auerbach-Baidani, Ilan Belokon, Ellie Cook, Anusha Dixit, Nina Knoll, Rol Orke, Leo Osann, Lia Sachs, anna scola, Sophie Stratyner, E11even Vargas, Amrita Vohra, Vic Walsh