Pepón Osorio
Curated by Eden Deering and Timmy Simonds
P·P·O·W is pleased to present Airhead, a group show pulling together a distinct selection of artists who move between worlds of teaching and artmaking. While their practices as artists have influenced how they teach, their experiences teaching have also influenced their work. Some are “teachers,” defined by institutions, and some not. The works in the exhibition raise questions about our cultural understanding of the character of “the teacher,” our expectations of what it is they do, and our presumptions of what education should be. These works do not lecture. They do not solve problems, nor provide a path to answers. They do not dictate morals. They are not pedagogical in the sense of Froebel’s “gifts” or Montessori’s sensorial letter cards. These works are catalysts of possibility. Yet, they are also images of what happens to a thing when it creates possibilities for others. They speak unresolvedly about authority, martyrdom, visibility and invisibility, voice, influence, agency, role play, navigation, connecting worlds, and the human attempt to empathize.
Coinciding with the show will be a program of exercises, teach-ins, and performances called Faculty Meetings, part of an ongoing teacher-focused project organized by Timmy Simonds, called Miss Othmar School for Teachers. The program will unfold throughout the duration of the exhibition and will include both artists participating in the exhibition such as Alison Knowles, Shellyne Rodriguez, Franz Erhard Walther, and Douglas Ross as well as other artists and collaborative projects such as No School, Alejandro De La Guerra & EspIRA, Gaby Collins-Fernandez, Bethany Ides, Stephen Kwok, Holly Adams, Ethan Philbrick, Prem Krishnamurthy, and the Young Filmmaker’s Foundation & Jessica Gordon-Burroughs. The full program will be announced in the coming weeks. Miss Othmar School for Teachers is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature through Wave Farm’s Fiscal Sponsorship.
Shellyne Rodriguez
Anicca (Lavoe's Existential Lamento), 2024
EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop
linocut relief print, chine collé, collage
42 x 29 1/4 ins.
106.7 x 74.3 cm
Anton van Dalen
Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre Props, 1995-2015
wood, graphite, c-print
dimensions variable
Jef Geys
Large Seedbag - Carnevale di Venezia, 2016
oil on canvas, bubble wrap, tape, marker
63 x 36 1/4 x 4 3/4 ins.
160.02 x 92.08 x 12.07 cm
Adam Putnam
Untitled (cocoon), 1995
silver gelatin print
17 x 11 ins.
43.2 x 27.9 cm
Pepón Osorio with Zayvionne Bristow, Jacob Rodriguez, Lynoshka Santa, Coralis Torres, Chelsey Velez, Kiara Villegas, Dante Quiñonez, Amy Donghee Oh
Installation from "reForm", 2014-17
mixed media installation
dimensions variable
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Screen (0X5A2655), 2020
Archival pigment print
61 x 41 x 2 ins.
155 x 104 x 5 cm
Patricia Belli
Limb, 2024
driftwood, found chair leg, found plastics, handmade springs
74 x 23 1/2 x 9 1/4 ins.
188 x 59.7 x 23.5 cm
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Necessity’s Rhythm, 2020
single-channel video, sound
TRT 34:06
Elizabeth King
Theater, 1972-73
Wood, mixed media, sound, hidden electronics and motors.
66 x 49 x 20 ins. open.
167.6 x 124.5 x 50.8 cm
Franz Erhard Walther
Untitled (B), 2013
two drawings: gouache and graphite on paper, graphite on paper
16 1/2 x 11 3/4 ins. each
41.9 x 29.8 cm each
Gabo Camnitzer
The Suit of Mirrors, 2019
mixed media
74 1/2 x 29 x 11 ins.
189.2 x 73.7 x 27.9 cm
Timmy Simonds
Inversions of the bad teacher, Paulo Freire (double white), 2024
bleached parsley, printed text on paper
11 x 8 1/2 x 1 1/4 ins.
27.9 x 21.6 x 3.2 cm
Even though school is out, an exhibition at P·P·O·W’s second-floor gallery space in Manhattan turns the spotlight onto the arbiters of education — teachers.
Two professions, one predicated on power and the other creation, are at play in Airhead, a group show currently on view at the Lower Manhattan gallery P·P·O·W.
Nothing says summer in New York like a slew of July group shows before galleries shut their doors for August and everyone juts off to somewhere cool or coastal to escape the heat.
Works from Richard Prince, Matthew Barney, Ghada Amer, and more are on view in a series of new shows.
