FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
James Michael Nichols, BRIC / 718.683.5980 / [email protected]
Elisa Smilovitz / A&O / 551.486.3273 / [email protected]
BRIC Announces Spring Gallery Exhibition
Suné Woods: Aragonite Stars, A Five Channel
Video Installation
The immersive video installation utilizes waterscape scenes to speak about concepts such as existence, intimacy, healing, and aquatic ecology.
On View: January 29 – May 8, 2022
Suné Woods, Aragonite Stars (video still), 2021. Courtesy of Artist and BRIC.
(BROOKLYN, NY — December 16, 2021) — BRIC is thrilled to present Suné Woods: Aragonite Stars, an immersive video installation that utilizes waterscape scenes to speak about concepts such as existence, intimacy, healing, and aquatic ecology. Marking Suné Woods’ first solo exhibition in New York, Aragonite Stars will take place at BRIC House (647 Fulton) in BRIC’s Gallery from January 29 to May 8, 2022. Reservations by staggered entry are encouraged.
A newly-commissioned expansion of Aragonite Stars will revive the video originally presented at Hammer Museum in 2018 as part of Made in L.A. The work looks at the important role water plays in the African Diaspora as a place for healing and mythologies regarding water as the home for spirits. The upcoming installation will feature a 13-minute video which will be presented as five monumental projections on the walls and floor of the gallery, accompanied by a soundtrack of ambient and discordant sounds by singer-songwriter and musician, Meshell Ndegeocello. The sequencing of the channels follows that of dream fragments or the language of collage. Through the use of non-linear language, Woods connects to how ancestors communicate through dreams.
Woods explores notions of sexual power as presented by Audre Lorde. The work asks questions around the destruction of the environment and the proliferation of harmful images of violence against Black bodies. Through the creation of alternative futures – what one can learn by studying marine life – our interaction with nature and each other can be seen differently. Woods is interested in how our perceptions of power can shift in terms of what can heal and cause harm. Woods’ work foregrounds Indigenous and Black points of view that are often left out of ecological discussions and that encourage the decentering of humans from nature. Placing imagery of aquatic plants and animals alongside videos of figures in water creates moving parallels that harken back to a more primordial time and contextualize humans as just one part of the greater living world.
For the duration of the exhibition, BRIC’s subterranean gallery space will be fully covered by tarps for an immersive experience that evokes the depth and darkness of the deep ocean, and our ever-evolving relationship with it. The video projections overlaid on the tarps create an uncanny, underwater-like environment. Viewed holistically, the work draws attention to the transformative, ancestral power of water to heal or hurt, sustain life, house the unknown, and unlock the future.
Woods’ installation will be on view during the same exhibition cycle as Jonathan González: The Smallest Unit Is Each Other in BRIC’s Project Room and Na’ye Perez: What You Know Bout Love…in BRIC’s hallway exhibition space. All three exhibitions are curated by BRIC Contemporary Art Curator Jenny Gerow.
Jenny Gerow, BRIC Curator, Contemporary Art, said:
“As the first set of exhibitions curated and commissioned during the pandemic at BRIC, these exhibits reflect a dual desire for intimacy and exploration of possibilities for new modes and meaning. Each exhibition proffers the need to unlearn and leave behind harmful preconceptions and behaviors that have been reproduced for generations.”
Suné Woods (she/her/they/them/he/him) is a noted mid-career artist based in Los Angeles. Her work has been presented in exhibitions including Made in L.A. 2018, Hammer Museum, and When A Heart Scatter, Scatter, Scatter at Everson Museum of Art. She has participated in residencies at Headlands Center of the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and The Center for Photography at Woodstock. Woods is a recipient of the Visions from the New California initiative and the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship Award. In addition, in 2020 she received the prestigious Artadia Award. Woods has served as Visiting Faculty in the CalArts Photography & Media Program, Vermont College of Fine Arts Visual Art Program, and as Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer at the UCLA Department of Art.
Suné Woods: Aragonite Stars is accompanied by public programs, including a family workshop, as well as an exhibition catalog with photography.
BRIC’s contemporary art program benefits from generous private funding from B&H Photo Video, Coby Foundation, Harold and Colene Brown Family Foundation, Harpo Foundation, Humanities New York, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and numerous individual supporters.
General support for BRIC is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Booth Ferris Foundation, Brooklyn Community Foundation, Con Edison, Harpo Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Industry City, JP Morgan Chase, Lambent Foundation, M&T Charitable Foundation, New York Community Trust, Scherman Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Surdna Foundation, Tiger Baron Foundation, and numerous individuals.
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ABOUT BRIC
BRIC is a leading arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn whose work spans contemporary visual and performing arts, media, and civic action. For over forty years, BRIC has shaped Brooklyn’s cultural and media landscape by presenting and incubating artists, creators, students, and media makers. As a creative catalyst for our community, we ignite learning in people of all ages and centralize diverse voices that take risks and drive culture forward. BRIC is building Brooklyn’s creative future. Learn more at bricartsmedia.org
