The CAMP Gallery at SCOPE Miami Beach 2024

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