The work in this booth is united by the unique dreamlike quality each artist brings to the table through a balance of textures and an abstraction of environment, akin to the idea of a “mind-body-spirit” connection. While their techniques differ in varying places, Eden Quispe Orly Cogan, and Manju Shandler center a purposeful and delicate reclaiming of privacy in The Contemporary Art Project’s booth for SCOPE Art Show Miami Beach 2024.

The artists selected for this year’s fair highlight the gallery’s dedication to showcasing the potential and integrity of textile art in the context of the fine art landscape. Despite its association with sometimes saccharine, nostalgic ideas of comfort and childhood, Quispe, Cogan, and Shandler channel their anxieties and preoccupations through the inherent pliability and transparency of this medium.

Eden Quispe, for one, situates her uneasiness in the context of postmodern American domesticity. The artworks selected from her catalogue are representative of the intellectual tension experienced in a rapidly-changing world. Through a deft merging of enduring traditions in both the history of art and that of the nuclear family, Quispe’s artworks personify the intangible doom presented to us by way of the roles we must juggle in our postmodern life. In Maschinenmensch (2021), named for the automaton constructed to replace its creator’s departed lover in the German sci-fi classic Metropolis, the artist blends Peruvian retablo and Medieval European altarpiece traditions through stitched, printed, and painted textiles. This enormous, crowning jewel within her body of work mirrors the fullness of life without forsaking the sanctity imposed upon the woman who can “do it all,” inclusive of the exhaustion that accompanies it.

Orly Cogan, on the other hand, fuses vices and virtues with a touch of Boschian fantasy, capitalizing on feminine sexuality to explore ideas of love, agency, vulnerability, womanhood, and fertility. The artist’s excavation, and subversion, of the legacy of hand-embroidery toys with gender expectations in the context of both textile work and human eroticism. Her use of vintage domestic textiles, such as tablecloths and found embroideries, as the base for cheeky and incisive threaded narratives emphasize the ways in which textile work has been used to keep women from accessing their potential, while playfully highlighting the experience of liberation on one’s own terms. In Woman’s Work (2004), a nude woman is pictured vacuuming in negative space, removed from any kind of environment in an ode to the imposed submissiveness onto women through the concept of “home-making.” Accompanying her is a mise en abyme rendering of a vulva hidden within the vacuum; this nod to popular characterizations of vulvae highlight ideas of purity (or lack thereof). This double depiction is emblematic of the artwork selected from Cogan’s catalogue, reflective of the joys in a having autonomy over one’s body and the construction of relationships with others, and more importantly, oneself.

Manju Shandler touches on contemporary and ancient modes of self-construction and knowledge in a selection of large-scale mixed media works on canvas. Named for astrological figures such as Libra, Scorpio, and Aquarius, these artworks are an example of Shandler’s masterful consideration of how meaning and aesthetics go hand-in-hand. Through a layering of textures and aesthetics, Shandler bridges historical and contemporary attitudes toward one of the most ancient of practices— astrology. She fuses materials spanning between the Age of Enlightenment and the Internet Age: lace, oil, photography and photo transfer, acrylic paint, etching, and patching. The artworks selected from Shandler’s catalogue are evocative of the spiritual nature of her body of work, and her intention to afford the viewer a private moment of personal transformation. In Libra/Justice (2022), Shandler presents a soaring meditation on the enduring beauty of interdependent concepts such equity and integrity; those whose zodiac sign is Libra are thought to center order, harmony, and justice in their lives, while remaining adaptable and charismatic. The coupling of these presumptions with the austerity of a bronze sculpture standing atop the sands of time illustrates the idea that one must continuously reckon with the obstacles on the road to balance that permeate our lived experience.

The thread connecting these artists, and their distinct practices, is not their use of textiles and associated techniques, though it’s important to note that their medium of choice affords them flexibility of thought and pace. Moreover, it stands as a testament to their ability to make sharp and informed observations about the world around them through practices historically used to “keep women busy.” The women in this booth connect to the implied femininity of the medium to gently excise the sinister nature of the real and imagined woes that reverberate in their minds, bodies, and spirits as the tides turn, viciously away from or exceptionally toward their favor. In a world that exists simultaneously in their heads and outside their doorsteps, the tactility of their practices allow them to channel both hardship and pleasure as a resounding example of the complexity of the human animal, who is still trying to figure out how to take care of itself.

Statement and curation by Maria Gabriela Di Giammarco