https://www.nytimes.com/article/new-york-art-galleries.html
February 11, 2022
“The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint was as much a pioneer of abstraction as a mystic. So, in 2020, when the artists Sharmistha Ray and Dannielle Tegeder formed a collective devoted to artwork by women, nonbinary, and trans people interested in spirituality, they named it after her.
Hilma’s Ghost’s first big project was creating a set of tarot cards. Now the duo has curated Cosmic Geometries, which expands on the deck, by continuing its exploration of connections between abstraction and mysticism. Aided by Sarah Potter, a witch, Ray and Tegeder used tarot as a guide for laying out the show. For each of the 25 artists, they pulled a card that’s displayed alongside the work.
Even if, like me, you don’t know much about tarot, you can appreciate its apparent curatorial powers. “March ’94” (1994), a bold and radiant canvas by Biren De, hangs next to Jackie Tileston’s painting “14. Muon Seance Aftermath” (2021), which evokes unseen forces in a quieter, more hermetic way. With their playful dances of color and shape, Marilyn Lerner’s “Queen Bee” (2020) and Rico Gatson’s “Untitled (Double Sun/Sonhouse)” (2021) look like a ready-made pair. Barbara Takenaga’s transcendent painting “Floater (Revised)” (2013—15) is unique, yet I felt echoes of it in the vibratory rhinestones of Evie Falci’s “Thalia” (2016).
It’s exhilarating to see a knockout exhibition that celebrates abstraction’s spiritual searching. These works are rooted in culture and form, but reminders, too, that when it comes to art, we’re often seeking something deeper. “
by JILLIAN STEINHAUER
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https://www.projectspace-efanyc.org
EFA Project Space presents Cosmic Geometries, organized by Hilma’s Ghost, a feminist collective project by Sharmistha Ray and Dannielle Tegeder, and featuring a diverse, intergenerational group of artists, with work by: Natessa Amin, Yevgeniya Baras, Lisa Beck, Biren De, Grace DeGennaro, Evie Falci, Anoka Faruqee & David Driscoll, Rico Gatson, Diana Guerrero-Maciá, Xylor Jane, Valerie Jaudon, Laleh Khorramian, Julia Kunin, Marilyn Lerner, Anne Lindberg, Mahirwan Mamtani, Carrie Moyer, Stephen Mueller, Sky Pape, Dorothea Rockburne, A.V. Ryan, Laurel Sparks, Barbara Takenaga, Jackie Tileston and Johanna Unzueta.
Cosmic Geometries is a group exhibition of intergenerational and intersectional artists that examines the spiritual and aesthetic functions of abstract painting and geometry in art. The artists deploy a range of painterly devices to create cosmic and transcendental visions that combine esoteric world traditions with the language of Modernism. Their motifs are inspired by sources as divergent as Islamic architecture, Buddhist mandalas, Hindu yantras, medieval Christian stained-glass windows, and quantum mechanics, rendering formal devices that range from tessellations, optical illusions, to elaborate ornamentation techniques. These artists primarily work with the language of painting, but also draw from languages and materials adapted from sculpture, installation, craft, textiles, and ceramics. Within these works lies a rich sensibility for color, shape, and compositional elements, which reveal the daring sensibilities that artists are bringing to the historically overlooked arena of the spiritual in art. These artists' practices build upon palimpsest legacies of alternative power structures that are constantly being erased.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This is Lenapehoking, the Lenape homeland and gathering place for many Indigenous nations and beings. When the unceded earth breathes again, there will be Indigenous lives here, as there are now and have always been. It will still be Lenapehoking. We learn from the bedrock and commit to uplifting, honoring, and listening to those who are seen and unseen, present and future.