Public Opening Friday, January 26, 2024 6-8 PM
125 Newbury is pleased to present Animal Watch, a group show exploring the intimacies, affects, and subjectivities of animals. The exhibition opens on Friday, January 26 with a public reception from 6pm to 8pm and will remain on view through Saturday, March 2.
How does it feel to be the object of an animal’s gaze? What happens in the instant an animal looks upon us, meeting our eyes with theirs? The philosopher Jacques Derrida once reflected on the unsettling experience of being observed by his cat while naked in the bathroom. “It is as if I were ashamed,” he wrote, “naked in front of this cat, but also ashamed for being ashamed.” Like Derrida in his bathroom, this exhibition explores the architecture of feelings that enmeshes us in the world of animals.
Richard Pousette-Dart, Bird #3, 1985
The exhibition, which brings together an intergenerational group of artists working across a wide range of mediums, includes works by Gertrude Abercrombie, Alexander Calder, Ann Craven, Julie Curtiss, Jean Dubuffet, Natalie Frank, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Emilie Louise Gossiaux, Edward Hicks, Morris Hirshfield, Peter Hujar, Joan Jonas, Nina Katchadourian, Allison Katz, Jon Kessler, Lyne Lapointe, Robert Longo, John Lurie, Diana Michener, Yoshitomo Nara, Robert Nava, Richard Pousette-Dart, Lucas Samaras, Kiki Smith, Carolee Schneemann, Nolan Simon, Saul Steinberg, Bill Traylor, Mose Tolliver, and Jonas Wood. Through fantasy, fiction, fabulation, and fact, works by these artists celebrate, investigate, and make visible the deep entanglements between animals and us.
Traversing a diversity of generations, geographies, mediums, styles, and points of reference—from the medieval bestiary to postmodern photography, from the folk aesthetic of Gertrude Abercrombie, Morris Hirshfield and Bill Traylor, to the surrealist imaginings of Robert Gober and Julie Curtiss, to the verité immediacy of Robert Longo and Peter Hujar, to the intimate encounters of Kiki Smith, Joan Jonas, Nan Goldin, and Carolee Schneemann—the artists in the exhibition depict animals as a locus for affect, questing after their vivacity, intelligence, and otherness. Confronting both the strangeness and the familiarity of the creaturely world around us, these artists teach us what it means to be the animal we call “human.”
Artists in the Exhibition
Gertrude Abercrombie
Alexander Calder
Ann Craven
Julie Curtiss
Jean Dubuffet
Natalie Frank
Robert Gober
Nan Goldin
Emilie Louise Gossiaux
Edward Hicks
Morris Hirshfield
Peter Hujar
Joan Jonas
Nina Katchadourian
Allison Katz
Jon Kessler
Lyne Lapointe
Robert Longo
John Lurie
Diana Michener
Yoshitomo Nara
Robert Nava
Richard Pousette-Dart
Lucas Samaras
Kiki Smith
Carolee Schneemann
Nolan Simon
Saul Steinberg
Bill Traylor
Mose Tolliver
Jonas Wood
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Photo: Peter Clough
Lyne Lapointe
Apache Tears, 2021
trampaper, Apache tears and hinge in artist's frame
23-3/4" × 11-1/2" × 3-1/2" (60.3 cm × 29.2 cm × 8.9 cm)
Nolan Simon
unus cursus quinque annos, 2015
oil, acrylic and laser print transfer on canvas
48" × 36" (121.9 cm × 91.4 cm)
Robert Nava
Timetwister, 2023
WORK ON PAPER
Acrylic, grease pencil, crayon on paper
25-1/2" × 19-3/4" (64.8 cm × 50.2 cm)
Peter Hujar
Two Dogs, Westtown, 1978
VINTAGE GELATIN SILVER
14-3/4" × 14-3/4" (37.5 cm × 37.5 cm), image
19-7/8" × 16" (50.5 cm × 40.6 cm), paper
Gertrude Abercrombie
Toddy, Possim and Christine, 1954
Oil on masonite
8" × 10" (20.3 cm × 25.4 cm), 11⅞ x 14 x 2¼ inches (30.18 x 35.56 x 5.71 cm) framed
Robert Gober
Paco, 2008-2024
Plaster, acrylic paint, graphite
9" × 6" × 7" (22.9 cm × 15.2 cm × 17.8 cm)
Nan Goldin
Electric Gaja, Paris, 2010
Dye sublimation print on aluminum
framed: 21" × 41" × 1-5/16" (53.3 cm × 104.1 cm × 3.4 cm)
Edition 2/15
By Paloma Baygual
