MULTIPLE GENRES
A Cultural Serving
MULTIPLE GENRES
On view at Faurschou New York through September 17 is Embrace the World from Within, an exhibition centered around several conceptions of a hold, “from embrace as the merging together of bodies, to embrace as an act of acceptance and shelter or by contrast as claustrophobic smothering.” Spread across three galleries in the Greenpoint space are several sculptures by Yoko Ono and Louise Bourgeois, alongside durational performances by Miles Greenberg. What a trinity.
While you can view Ono’s and Bourgeois’s works at leisure, Greenberg’s performance is live only on Saturdays. Simply titled “The Embrace,” the work features two figures wearing white contact lenses, obscuring their views of the outside world and altering the direct gaze of audience members. Seated on a rock in a glass cube, the pair “lock in an intimate embrace, gradually coalescing into one sculptural form.” Freshwater slowly drips into a body of saltwater below, melding the two disparate materials and reflecting the cradling figures above. The performance is described as capturing a “monumental stillness,” which is exactly what we’d like to find ourselves enfolded in on a casual weekend afternoon.
Think about
While it may seem obvious, one thing Greenberg does not embrace is the constraint of time. Or perhaps, he embraces the freedom of time ignored. “Whatever you’re experiencing, you have to dedicate yourself to it completely,” he said in 2021. “It needs to feel like it’s going to be the rest of your life, because that’s the only way that you can abandon time.” We admire the intensity of his dedication to a creative life, even when it bears the inevitable risk of smothering and concealing all else.
Learn more
Forever embracing blurred lines and works that eschew singular genres, we’re picking up Now, Now Louison from New Directions. The imagined biography-slash-portrait of Borgeious is translated into English by the prolific Cole Swensen and originally written in French by Jean Frémon, a critic, gallerist, novelist, and friend of the late artist who similarly defied boundaries.
We also highly recommend doing a quick dive into Ono’s lifelong embrace of the shade.
Written by So Textual
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