Lita Albuquerque’s exhibition of new work for Earth Skin, on view at Michael Kohn Gallery, includes several dramatic blue paintings and a huge installation piece on the floor of the gallery that grabs your attention the moment you enter the gallery.
From the gallery-
Beginning her career in the 1970s with works that intimately connected her to the earth, Albuquerque’s artistic evolution envelops the cosmos and the space between it and us. Her work emanates from years of practicing the exact science of Kundalini breath technique as well as automatic writing; both drive a deep investigation and scientific inquiry of who we are as individual beings on this planet. Albuquerque further connects to the exactness of physics by a meditation she, and astronomers, call the cosmic address. These daily practices are at the root of her art, precisely positioning self to cosmos. It is those discoveries she embeds in works of art that permit us, the viewer, to experience the connections she has made between these internal and external worlds.
Thinking about the exhibition, Albuquerque writes:
Feet dancing above the earth, dancing with fervor, drumming, the increasing drumming of the feet not fragile on the fragile earth.
The wisps of bodies, like skins falling off their frames leaving the planet, the planet strong and our forms ethereal, the strength of us, our feet, on the fragile earth, the wispy lightness of us, detached from the earth, transforming into space.
The earth strong behind us, propelling us upward, giving us her strength, throwing us in the air, while we fly, never falling, the fierce intensity of our rhythm while alive, and the freedom of release from the earth.
Experiments of intensities of emotions and colors, whirling dervishes’ cyclones, Earth Skin is whispered, “Earth Skin” she whispered.
For PST’s Art and Science Collide, Albuquerque transforms the gallery with a titular installation, Earth Skin. A membrane of decomposed granite fills the space creating the illusory sensation of the earth being revealed below the gallery, as if the concrete floor has been meticulously removed. Accompanying this installation is a new series of paintings revolving around the gestures of the body and ancient marks, like a hieroglyphic code only the artist has a key for. With each gesture, Albuquerque embraces the tactile intimacy of painting, reminding us of the power of capturing and transforming the elusive into the material. This installation invites viewers to explore the shared fragility of humanity and earth.
Two of the paintings, picutred below, include poems referencing fellow artist Ana Mendieta, who was known in part for her “earth-body” work and who passed away tragically in 1985.
“Propelling Us Upwards, She, The Earth, Throwing Us In The Air While We Fly, Never Falling, A Poem for A.M.”, 2024, Pigment on Canvas
“Desire and Memory, A Poem for A.M.”, 2024, Pigment on canvas
This exhibition is part of The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: Art and Science Collide an arts event taking place in various venues around Southern California.
For more information on Lita Albuquerque and her work Red Canary Magazine recently published an excellent article that is worth a read as well.