Group Show
NADA House 2024
3 Sep — 27 Okt 2024
GOLESTANI is excited to announce an exhibition with new works on paper and sculpture by Emilie L. Gossiaux, and painting by Natalie Terenzini as a part of the 2024 edition of NADA House—a collaborative format taking place in a turn-of-the-century revival building in historic Nolan Park on Governors Island, New York. NADA House brings together 17 international art galleries and art spaces to present 21 artists, with participants engaging the unique character of the residence and exhibiting work in a diverse range of mediums.
The sixth edition of NADA House 2024 opens to the public on Tuesday, September 3rd, and will be accessible to the public with special hours during the New York art fair week and an opening reception on Friday, September 6th. No RSVP is required to see the exhibition—you are welcome.
Opening reception
Tuesday, September 3, 11am—5pm
Friday, September 6th, 2—5pm
NADA House
Nolan Park, Building 17
Governors Island
New York, NY 11231
Hours
Friday—Sunday, 11am—5pm
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Emilie L. Gossiaux and Natalie Terenzini work independently and explore questions of identity, understandings of the self in relation to the other, and intimate relationships as a connection to the world at large.
Contrary to the Cartesian notion of the self as a coherent and stable entity, contemporary understandings of identity posit as multi-faceted and constructed through interaction with the external world. Psychology Today describes: “Identity encompasses the memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one’s sense of self. This amalgamation creates a steady sense of who one is over time, even as new facets are developed and incorporated into one's identity.” This idea resonates with Arthur Rimbaud (1894—91), the prodigious French poet and his enigmatic and profound assertions “Je est un autre" (I is another), a phrase that encapsulates his radical rethinking of identity and creativity. Rimbaud acknowledges the multiplicity within the self and the influence of external forces on personal identity. The notion that the self is constructed and continuously redefined through experience and interaction remains a central theme in contemporary discussions: Through "Je est un autre," Rimbaud not only redefined the role of the artist but also provided a timeless reflection on the nature of the self in an ever-changing world.
In this exhibition, Gossiaux presents new work on paper and earthenware ceramic pieces as an homage to the life of her guide dog London. She recreates objects of personal significance associated with London’s everyday work routine, playtime and pleasure, such as rubber chew toys of various shapes, her collar and name tag, harness and leash. Dog collars, harnesses and leashes serve as bodily extensions that mutually and physically connect dog to human and human to dog. With this collection of nostalgic memorabilia, Gossiaux honors seemingly quotidian objects that nurture and shape shared intimacies between dogs and humans.
Artist statement: Emilie L. Gossiaux
Born in New Orleans, LA in 1989, I am a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Despite becoming blind in 2010, my disability did not end my ambitions as an artist, but rather strengthened my artistic and conceptual practices both formally, and aesthetically. Creating works based on internal imagery, my process relies solely on my senses of touch and proprioception as substitutes for sight. By combining tactile mark making, movement, and somatic memory, I use my hands and body as tools to recall the texture, shape, and scale of people, places, or things in relation to my body. Throughout my artistic practice, I have explored themes such as interdependence, Disability joy, and interspecies kinships by centering the decade long relationship I’ve had with my guide dog and animal companion, London. Transcending the traditional binary between pets and owners, I describe our partnership as one that is simultaneously maternal, spousal, emotional and practical—a bond built upon years of mutual respect, care, and trust. In my ceramic sculptures and drawings, I make human and canine extremities—tongues, tails, paws, hands and feet reaching out to touch, or to lick the other, illustrating our intimate and non-normative family ties. And in my sculptural installations, I enforce London’s own personhood by monumentalizing her body in human scale, either standing upright on her hind legs, or freely dancing with joy. While celebrating the love and agency London gives me, I am also conscious of the dehumanization I’ve faced while moving through the world attached to a dog. This experience fuels my interest into how both disabled people and animals are perceived as the “other”.
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In Natalie Terenzini's self-portraits, supposed everyday scenes appear as snapshots of a melancholic figure in the field of tension between subject and form, between emotional realism and promising fiction: in the midst of colorful interiors, a longing remains and endures unfulfilled in the moment. As much as this longing is expressed in physical desire, and as far as Terenzini commits her bodies to the round shape, the physicality appears as a symbol of harmony as desideratum. Occasionally, however, Terenzini's image concept moves away from the lonely individual figure to the representation of the couple, when the desire for romance and intimacy and the permanent completion of the self through fusion, union with the other seems to be fulfilled. Her pictures always shine with promise from within, and continually convey the prospect that everything will be fine in the end.
Artist statement: Natalie Terenzini
In my work I am exploring desire and disillusionment through the use of self caricature. Vignetting intimate scenes among my familiar and her counterparts; I examine my relationship to myself, my femininity, and the ways the outside observer influences external expression of internal states of being. In the body of work I am producing the paintings are focused on the intimate relationship between the female projection of myself and her male partner. They are entwined in bed below a bright yellow moon, caught in a tryst amongst the bushes in a park, and bathed in blue light as they share a post-coital cigarette. In each of these scenes the couple engages with the viewer, casting their gaze out at us as we intrude on their quiet moments of emotional entanglement. The scenes are not idealized versions of sex and love but instead are authentic moments laden with the quiet tension of domestic life. They are honest depictions of the merging of two individuals and the ritual of relationship dynamics, from the performative aspects of sex to the mundanity of reading the paper in bed and mending a tom hem. In seeing the range of relational behaviors throughout the body of work we are met with the different forms intimacy takes, allowing us to envision an un-idealized and complex idea of what love is.
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EMILIE LOUISE GOSSIAUX (b. 1989, New Orleans, LA) lives and works in New York City. Gossiaux earned a BFA from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2014, and an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2019. Her solo shows include Significant Otherness (2022) at Mother Gallery and Other-Worlding at the Queens Museum (2024), among others. Select group exhibitions include Crip Time, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt (2021); Greater New York, MoMA PS1 (2021); and 52 Artists, A Feminist Milestone, The Aldrich Contemporary (2022); among others. Gossiaux was awarded a John F. Kennedy Center’s VSA Prize (2013), the Wynn Newhouse Award (2019), a NYFA Barbara and Carl Zydney Grant (2021), the Colene Brown Art Prize (2022), and The Pébéo Production Prize (2023). Her work has been featured in publications such as The Brooklyn Rail, The New Yorker, Art in America, and Topical Cream Magazine.
NATALIE TERENZINI (b. 1996, San Diego, CA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA from the New York Academy of Art, and a BFA from the Laguna College of Art and Design. Terenzini has participated in exhibitions at Thierry Goldberg, New York, NY; Vin Vin, Vienna, Austria; Kutlesa, Goldau, Switzerland; PM/AM, London, UK; Monya Rowe, New York; and LIA programme, Leipzig, Germany, among others. Her work was featured at Juxtapoz Magazine.
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Governors Island is a 172-acre island in the heart of New York Harbor nestled between Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn waterfront. Eight minutes from the energy and excitement of the City, the Island is a popular seasonal destination. The resilient park is complemented by dozens of unique historic buildings, environmental educational facilities, a rich arts and culture program, and a 22-acre National Monument managed by the National Park Service.
Unlike anywhere else in New York, Governors Island offers peaceful settings with sweeping views of the Harbor, Lower Manhattan skyline, and the Statue of Liberty. The Island is activated year-round as a sustainable campus for learning and entrepreneurship.