LOS ANGELES, CA.- Luis De Jesus Los Angeles presents Miami-based artist Antonia Wright in her second solo project with the Gallery, titled Suddenly We Jumped, on view from April 5 through May 10, 2014. An artist's reception will be held on Saturday, April 5th, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Originally performed live at Vizcaya Museum, Miami, Florida, during Art Basel Miami Beach 2013, "Suddenly We Jumped" is a new performance for video work by Antonia Wright in which she transforms her body into a mechanized weapon. Inspired by Futurist ideals and aesthetics, Wright's nude body is catapulted into the air where it violently smashes through a sheet of glass. Rendered in slow motion, the video captures her writhing figure as it comes into contact and then explodes through the glass, allowing for a heightened experience of the visual metaphor.
"Suddenly We Jumped" continues Wright's focus of using her own body as the primary tool with which to examine and negotiate a number of personal, social, and political issues—from gender equality and environmental protection to free speech and human rights. Just as she has done in previous performances, such as Deep Water Horizon (2009) and Be (2013), Wright's decision to engage extreme physical/emotional action and place her own life in danger becomes a powerful metaphor for the fragility of life, and a lesson in personal ethics for how this new age that we live in demands an even greater commitment of ourselves in order to affect change.
Antonia Wright (born 1979) graduated from the New School University in New York City with an MFA in Poetry (2005) and studied at the International Center of Photography. She received her BA (2002) from the University of Montana, Missoula, MT. Recent exhibitions include Are You Ok?, and You Make Me Sick: I Love You, at Spinello Projects, Miami; Be, at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; Trading Places II at The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami; Perfect Lovers (a Frieze New York special project) at the White Box Gallery in New York; Where All of Your Dreams Come True, at The Mosquera Collection, Miami; Fireflies, at Aeroplastics in Brussels, Belgium; and MOCA Optic Nerve VIII at The De La Cruz Collection, Miami.
Wright's work is held in the permanent collections of Martin Z. Margulies at The Warehouse (Miami), The Hadley Martin Fisher Collection (Tampa), and the Marty & Cricket Taplin Collection at the Sagamore Hotel (Miami Beach). Wright has been featured in publications including Art in America, New York Magazine, Daily News, The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, The Art Newspaper, The Sun-Sentinel, ArtSlant, and Miami Art Guide, among others.
"Suddenly we jumped, hearing the mighty noise of the huge double-decker trams that rumbled by outside, ablaze with colored lights, like villages on holiday suddenly struck and uprooted by the flooding Po and dragged over falls and through gorges to the sea." ~ Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
