Manifest

We are pleased to announce our salon invitational exhibition MANIFEST taking place at SECRIST | BEACH this fall. 

MANIFEST is a survey of artworks and inspired studies/drawings by artists and architects exploring themes of light, color and space. This exhibition includes an international roster of artists and was guest curated with the assistance of Anne Lindberg. MANIFEST is presented in conjunction with the solo exhibition Of all colors by Lindberg at 1801 W. Hubbard St. from September 20 - November 16, 2024.

The manifestation of an idea is a universal experience that can occur at both micro and macro levels, consciously and subconsciously and oscillate between different levels of publicness and privacy. To manifest, or to evidence an idea, implies that the idea has completed its journey and come to fruition. Ultimately, the how, if and why of that idea often leads to more ideas. For artists and architects, this self-perpetuating processes of ideation represent a creative venture unto its own. Often the remnants, or evidence, of some of these ideas manifests itself in a physical form, from which presentation takes the form of an object.

MANIFEST builds a framework for understanding the life of ideas through a rubric that includes the intertwined elements of light, color and space. Each artist and architect on view utilizes one or more of these components to develop a conceptual framework to develop their ideas in a variety of physical formats. The conceptual components of each of these aspects find common ground in nature, the original inspiration spot: light (luminosity & illumination), color (emotion & symbolism) and space (motion & volume). Cumulatively, the representation of ideas on their respective journeys make up the building blocks of the world around us and offer an opportunity for examination. 

In our west gallery, Anne Lindberg’s concurrent exhibition Of all colors encapsulates many of these ideas. In addition to 14 new abstract drawings made with graphite and colored pencil on mat board, on view will be a 54-foot-long thread sculpture made on site. The color blue will be the binding tie here, which she abstractly approaches with cultural, historical and phenomenological curiosity. Ultimately, the dialogue between these connected installations taking place in our renovated double-bow trussed skylit warehouse building promises to create a synergistic dynamic that we hope will be memorable and inspiring. 

Artists and architects featured in MANIFEST include:

• Marshall Brown
• Teddy Cruz
• Rachel Duckhouse
• Jeanne Gang
• Jason Lazarus
• Luftwerk
• Amanda Martínez
• Dean Smith
• Ana Tiscornia

Marshall Brown (New Jersey) utilizes speculative architectural fiction to reimagine the future of cities (Berlin) by invoking the past. Brown’s collages, culled from monographs on significant figures from the history of architectural photography, create new narratives within architectural constructs without function. 

Teddy Cruz’s (San Diego) collages investigates what he calls the “wasted landscape”. These works elaborate on the social, cultural, political, and economic forces of landscape by highlighting the critical issues surrounding borders, density and urban sprawl in the territory between the U.S. and Mexico. 

Rachel Duckhouse’s (Glasgow) artwork explores structures, patterns and flows within landscapes and the dynamic relationships between things - particularly architecture, water, light and memory. Her drawings and prints utilize abstract forms to express the dynamic relationships between inner and outer worlds through imagined geometries, patterns and places.

Jeanne Gang’s (Chicago) architectural practice draws insight from ecological systems, creating striking places that connect people with each other, their communities, and the environment. Gang’s maquettes, sculptural drawings and installations are emblematic of a practice she calls “actionable idealism”: pushing design’s ability to create public awareness and give rise to change.

Jason Lazarus’ (Tampa) photographs from his 2004-Present series and eclipse viewers from 2017 & 2024 made by both the general public and the artist represent his democratic approach to seeing, exploring and being in the world around us. By expanding photography’s capability to bear witness through discrete conceptual gestures, light, color and space are lauded. 

Luftwerk’s (Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero) (Chicago) reimagines the realities of physical space by developing spatial experiences mined from the creative possibilities of nature, data, and the built environment. The installation of paint and light in the gallery’s salon room play with physiological senses by interrupting what our brain sees and in turn create a visceral moment that will have one questioning what color is.

Amanda Martínez’s (New York) sculptural wall relief is an interpretive reference to adobe constructions in New Mexico referencing structure, design and color while also embracing ancestry, memory, and emotional inheritance. 

Dean Smith's (Oakland, CA) drawings and collages reflect upon the measure of time, the peculiarities of space, and the ceaseless human impulse to render the invisible visible. Works from Smith’s labyrinthseries depict ahistorical geometric forms drawn precisely, on found vintage paper—time presented both as rumination and physical fact. His environment collages, sourced from 19th century engraving illustrations, are arranged to abstract rather than reveal their figural nature.

Ana Tiscornia’s (Rhinebeck, NY) wall works and assemblages of fragments of furniture and common tools reflect a tension between order and disorder, wherein the later is salvaged by an uncanny order. Working from the trauma of a military dictatorship in her native Uruguay, the manipulations - or rearranging - allow for a type of recovery that refers to simultaneously exposing and scattered fragments of a failed utopia.

Image: Rachel Duckhouse
Through to the Citz (C), 2024
Etching (Copperplate hardground and aquatint etching on Arches Blanc paper)
20 x 20 inches, framed