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Desire Encapsulated
Andrew Sendor, Catalina Ouyang, Guimi You, Lior Modan, Bambou Gili, Miguel Angel Payano Jr., Joeun Kim Aatchim, Lita Albuquerque, Yuri Yuan, Sula Bermudez-Silverman, Yanyan Huang, Yifan Jiang, Yesiyu Zhao, Ruby Leyi Yang, Chris Oh, Hiba Schahbaz and Clai, 19 June - 31 July 2021

Desire Encapsulated: Andrew Sendor, Catalina Ouyang, Guimi You, Lior Modan, Bambou Gili, Miguel Angel Payano Jr., Joeun Kim Aatchim, Lita Albuquerque, Yuri Yuan, Sula Bermudez-Silverman, Yanyan Huang, Yifan Jiang, Yesiyu Zhao, Ruby Leyi Yang, Chris Oh, Hiba Schahbaz and Clai

Past exhibition
  • Installation Views
  • Works
  • Press release
  • Press
Installation Views
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Works
  • Hiba Schahbaz, Untitled, 2021
    Hiba Schahbaz, Untitled, 2021
  • Sula Bermúdez-Silverman, Ladies in the Ring, 2021
    Sula Bermúdez-Silverman, Ladies in the Ring, 2021
  • Lior Modan, The Fortune Teller
    Lior Modan, The Fortune Teller
  • Chris Oh, Spring, 2021
    Chris Oh, Spring, 2021
  • Yesiyu Zhao, Pedicure and Pistol Squad, 2021
    Yesiyu Zhao, Pedicure and Pistol Squad, 2021
  • Andrew Sendor, @kh.oi : when there's parking in venice, October 18, 2020, 2021
    Andrew Sendor, @kh.oi : when there's parking in venice, October 18, 2020, 2021
  • Ruby Leyi Yang, Things You Wrote me 1, 2021
    Ruby Leyi Yang, Things You Wrote me 1, 2021
  • Miguel Angel Payano Jr., Old Mirror Sunset, 2021
    Miguel Angel Payano Jr., Old Mirror Sunset, 2021
  • Yifan Jiang, Wheels, 2021
    Yifan Jiang, Wheels, 2021
  • Yifan Jiang, Wheels, 2021
    Yifan Jiang, Wheels, 2021
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, The Piggy Back, 2019
    Joeun Kim Aatchim, The Piggy Back, 2019
  • Yanyan Huang, Little Time Pool, 2021
    Yanyan Huang, Little Time Pool, 2021
  • Lita Albuquerque, Untitled, 2020
    Lita Albuquerque, Untitled, 2020
  • Lita Albuquerque, Millennium Poem, 1995
    Lita Albuquerque, Millennium Poem, 1995
  • Lita Albuquerque, Carrying the Cosmos Under Its Wings, 2020
    Lita Albuquerque, Carrying the Cosmos Under Its Wings, 2020
  • Claire Colette, Blue Flower [never-ending flame], 2021
    Claire Colette, Blue Flower [never-ending flame], 2021
  • Yuri Yuan, Untitled, 2021
    Yuri Yuan, Untitled, 2021
  • Bambou Gili, Green Fairy Jr., 2021
    Bambou Gili, Green Fairy Jr., 2021
  • Guimi You, Blue Studio, 2021
    Guimi You, Blue Studio, 2021
  • Catalina Ouyang, font VII, 2021
    Catalina Ouyang, font VII, 2021
Press release

Andrew Sendor, Catalina Ouyang, Guimi You, Lior Modan, Bambou Gili, Miguel Angel Payano Jr., Joeun Kim Aatchim, Lita Albuquerque, Yuri Yuan, Sula Bermudez-Silverman, Yanyan Huang, Yifan Jiang, Yesiyu Zhao, Ruby Leyi Yang, Chris Oh, Hiba Schahbaz and Claire Colette

 

The concept of desire is one familiar to every human being and yet is near-impossible to define. Desire was declared by Gautama Buddha to be the source of all suffering, something that must be relinquished. Others, such as the utopian socialist Charles Fourier, saw personal desires as crucial to establishing social harmony. Perhaps the most philosophically dense works concerning desire have been made in the arts. Visual signifiers can best articulate the ambiguity that desire holds within the human conscience. From the ecstatic sculptures of the Italian Baroque to sensuous ukiyo-e prints, all the way to the intimate new media and digital works of our present, art has been used to encapsulate, rather than define, our notions of desire. 

 

It is in this artistic tradition that Desire Encapsulated follows. The exhibition features 17 artists who create works in which desire is expressed and captured through different media, techniques, and practices. In Desire Encapsulated, as in desire itself, there is a constant push and pull between literalness and metaphor, between dreaming and waking, between figuration and abstraction. This tension is reflected in the flow of the exhibition, which is exhibited throughout Make Room’s new gallery space. 

 

In the first gallery, traditional narratives of desire are mediated by material, form, and tradition: Hiba Schahbaz and Chris Oh find modern resonance in the confines of historic styles and techniques, while the works of Lior Modan and Sula Bermúdez-Silverman revel in the inherent sensuality and mystery of their materials.

 

In the second gallery, personal ideas of desire begin to take shape, dissolve, and reform. In Yanyan Huang’s calligraphy-influenced painting, the line between representation and abstraction is rendered meaningless; meanwhile, Yesiyu Zhao and Miguel Angel Payano Jr. create work that investigate the changing natures of identity, belonging, and personal narrative; Andrew Sendor’s meticulous draftsmanship serves to illuminate his ongoing engagement with the interrelation of photorealism and invented narrative structures; Ruby Leyi Yang’s abstraction of the color, plane, and text reaches for what is beyond the meaning of language, beyond the meaningless; and for Joeun Kim Aatchim and Yifang Jiang, forms and boundaries, whether they be of concepts, objects, compositions, or narratives, collapse in on themselves, yielding new aesthetic structures. 

 

Desire reaches into the unconscious in the final gallery. Lita Albuquerque and Claire Colette’s canvases pair recognizable natural forms and materials with geometric, meditative abstractions that bridge the gap between humanity and the vastness of the universe; Yuri Yuan’s painted dream diaries turn inward, touching on themes of loss, solitude, and deep self-reflection; Bambou Gili’s cerulean figures find themselves at the intersection of art history, daydreams, and social theory. In Guimi You’s latest painting, objects and forms enter the head in a whirl of shape, color, and visual play. The sculptures of Catalina Ouyang play with the idea and form of the human body, using unique–and often humorous–materials to do so. 

 

The relationship between desire and art permeates not only the final image, but the acts, techniques and materials that constitute creation; Desire runs not only the production of art, but also the contemplation, enjoyment, and consumption of it. With Desire Encapsulated, we seek to investigate the ways in which desire is itself held in thrall by the mechanism of art.

Press
  • Gallery Rounds: Desire Encapsulated at Make Room

    Julie Schulte, Artillery, 14 July 2021
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  • Desire Encapsulated: Make Room's Inaugural Group Show @ Their New Location in Los Angeles

    Summer Bowie, Autre, 1 July 2021
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  • Make Room Los Angeles’ Group Exhibition “Desire Encapsulated” Heats Up Hollywood

    Laura Pitcher, Observer, 22 June 2021
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Related artists

  • Miguel Angel Payano Jr.

    Miguel Angel Payano Jr.

  • Art by Andrew Sendor

    Andrew Sendor

  • Guimi You

    Guimi You

  • Yuri Yuan

    Yuri Yuan

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