Stamatina Gregory Curator of Eco-Conscious Curated Section

Image: Stamina Gregory, image courtesy Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging

Stamina Gregory was named as curator for the fourth iteration of the VOLTA fair’s critically received Curated Section, which will occur at the fair’s twelfth edition in New York, on view at Pier 90 from March 6-10, 2019.

Ecological Dreaming presents the work of eleven artists engaging in ecological research through various modes: scientific methodologies, historical and decolonial study, phenomenology, language, grassroots legislation, and Indigenous frameworks of value and belief. 

Stamina Gregory, image courtesy Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging

Curator Stamina Gregory states: “At a moment of escalating climate and humanitarian crisis (and of inadequate responses by global leadership and capital speculation) how art transform existing visual cultures of environmentalism, make affected publics visible, and amplify activist positions? To dream is to conceive and envision alternative futures, and to move beyond the aesthetic to the propositional — reorienting anthropocentric perspectives and reimagining our relationships to our surroundings and to one another.” 

Jessica Segall, (un)common intimacy, 2018, Two-channel full HD video, 7:42. Courtesy the artist and La Borie, Solignac

Amanda Coulson, VOLTA Artistic Director notes: "We introduced the Curated Section four years ago to bring an essential voice to the overall fair environment. In shining a spotlight on topics such as  the body as a site of reckoning and transformation in a show curated by Derrick Adams; the precariousness of the body and identity in a time of political turmoil, curated by Wendy Vogel; and a focus on the history and lineage of collage in addressing crucial social issues, curated by Deux Femmes Noires, (Mickalene Thomas and Racquel Chevremont), we were able to broaden and diversify the discourse immeasurably. This year we felt strongly  that the growing reality of our ecological insecurity was an urgent topic. Stamatina has assembled mid-career greats like SUPERFLEX, young pioneers like Chando Ao, and 2019 VOLTA Cares artist and multitiered curator and activist, Alicia Grullón to exemplify the harmony of voices, all over the world, working with and responding to this most grave global concern.”

Exhibiting artists in Ecological Dreaming

Chando Ao (presented by Yve Yang Gallery, New York)

Borinquen Gallo (presented by Burning in Water, New York/San Francisco)

Alicia Grullón

Justin Brice Guariglia

Merritt Johnson (presented by Accola Griefen Gine Art, Brooklyn)

Elizabeth Phelps Meyer

Jane C. Mi

Rachel Owens

Andrew Ross

Jessica Segell (presented by La Borie, Solignac)

The Curated Section has been radically reinvisioned for its fourth iteration, removing traditional trade show carpeting (a difficult-to-recycle, environmental burden) and opening up its layout of freestanding walls to foreground a proper, enclosed screening room. Within the theatre, SUPERFLEX unveil their latest major film, Hunga Tonga (2019), commissioned by TBA21-Academy and the outcome of the Danish supergroup’s expedition to the newly formed volcanic island in the South Pacific in 2018, part of a larger research project, Deep Sea Minding. Plus, Rachel Owens unveils Life on the Other Side of a Cracked Glass Ceiling (Hudson River Piers), a new installation featuring deck casts from the floor of her previous studio of 10 years. Merritt Johnson shows works from her series Intersectional Seed Baskets, which celebrate her mixed

VOLTA New York

6 March - 10 March, 2019