MIAMI, FL.- The first solo museum presentation for rising artist Sasha Gordon opened at the
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) this December, debuting a suite of new paintings and recent work. The exhibition demonstrates the ongoing evolution of Gordon’s signature, surrealistic practice, which explores the complexities of bodily experience in hyperrealistic detail. Coinciding with Miami Art Week, and curated by Alex Gartenfeld, ICA Miami’s Irma & Norman Braman Artistic Director, Sasha Gordon is on view at ICA Miami since December 4, 2023, to April 28, 2024.
Often depicting herself, Gordon is keenly aware of the art historical themes of portraiture and self-portraiture, and of the politics of representation. She approaches these categories with inventiveness and humor and a unique ability to make fantasy real. Gordon’s images survey a wide range of emotional possibilities while exploring the rich plurality of her identity as a queer Asian American woman. Depicting intimacy, empowerment, vulnerability, and the feminine form, her work critically engages issues of self-image, racial prejudice, interpersonal relationships, and the attending psychological impacts, while also exhibiting discomfort. In her most recent works, including new paintings debuting at ICA Miami, Gordon depicts herself in a condition of becoming.
Transforming into animal, botanical, and geological phenomena, Gordon enacts the process of objectifying bodies, while examining personal experiences of alienation and challenging taboos and standards of representation. Through these avatars she portrays the othering of unconventional human bodies and examines her own experiences of alienation, while questioning the logic of certain limiting social norms.
Among the recent works featured in the exhibition is Volcano (2023), in which Gordon explores themes of transformation and confronts the demonization of women's emotions. While anger among men is typically perceived as a manifestation of strength or power, in women it is often labelled a sign of instability. With this painting, the artist claims her right to express rage, reimagining herself as an erupting volcano; gritting her teeth, she paints herself overflowing with lava-like emotion.
“Sasha Gordon is a leader in the field of contemporary painting, with a unique ability to communicate complex personal and cultural issues through her exquisite and inventive technique. We are proud to bring together new and very recent works in order to amplify Sasha's ideas about identity, objectification, and the politics of representation,” said Gartenfeld. “As Gordon’s debut solo museum exhibition, this presentation exemplifies ICA Miami’s commitment to providing the first institutional platform for important artists, and providing early-career contextualization through scholarship and conversation.”
Alongside Sasha Gordon this fall, ICA Miami opens a robust roster of solo exhibitions and installations, including a three-decade survey of renowned conceptual artist Charles Gaines; a presentation of works by under-recognized painter Ahmed Morsi; a major new installation by Tau Lewis, the 2023 recipient of the Ezratti Family Prize for Sculpture; and a new monumental photographic installation by Anne Collier, animating the museum’s dramatic central staircase.
Sasha Gordon (b. 1998, Somers, New York) lives and works in New York. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, in 2021. Solo exhibitions include “Hands of Others,” Jeffrey Deitch, New York (2022) and “Enters Thief,” Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2021). Her work is included in the collections of ICA Miami; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
