UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach OVR

Booth A8

December 2 – 6, 2020

Installation view of Chris Barnard in Booth A8 at UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach Online Viewing Room

Installation view of Edra Soto in Booth A8 at UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach Online Viewing Room

Installation view of Kambui Olujimi in Booth A8 at UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach Online Viewing Room

Installation view of Nicolas Grenier in Booth A8 at UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach Online Viewing Room

Press Release

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce our participation in UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach OVR. The online fair will run from December 2-6, 2020, with a VIP Preview on Tuesday, December 1, starting at 11am EST / 8am PST. To attend the fair and enter the Online Viewing Rooms, please register here.

The Gallery will present three new limited editions by Nicolas Grenier, new paintings by Chris Barnard, selections from a new and ongoing series by Edra Soto, and new paintings and sculptures by Kambui Olujimi.

Nicolas Grenier creates artworks that translate theoretical and philosophical queries into visual and physical form in order to critique and reimagine political, economic, cultural, and social landscapes. For UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach OVR Grenier has created three new limited-edition prints. Recognizable for their meticulous crafting and seamless gradations of contrasting color and light, Grenier’s works use abstraction and design to create the illusion of logic and destabilize narratives of power, while signaling the imperative need to develop new systems that account for a plurality of visions, values, and perspectives. It's worth noting that these digital images and prints are not a by-product of his paintings; they are the primary step in his creative process and each has been generated over a period of weeks or months through a thoughtful and continuous revision of the drawing, design and color.

Chris Barnard’s paintings propose a reassessment of contemporary painting in which the evolution of painting is linked to moral progress. Over the course of his career Barnard has grappled with the connections and gaps between painting and contemporary socio-political events, focusing on the manifestations of American exceptionalism and its consequences on various cultures and environments—racial inequality, environmental degradation, state-sanctioned violence and war. Imagery often vies with formal aspects for the viewer’s attention, mirroring the inherent conflict between an artwork’s subject matter and its representation. In these new paintings, current events are set within an art historical context (a sculpture of Serena Williams towers over the French History Painting room at the Louvre and a climactic UFC moment is superimposed into a Joan Mitchell exhibition), alluding to the misogyny and toxic masculinity that pervade culture and society as a whole.

Interdisciplinary artist Kambui Olujimi challenges established modes of thinking that commonly function as “inevitabilities.” When Monuments Fall (2018-ongoing) is a series of paintings that examine the precarious position of Modernist monumentality and its atemporality. The work intersects with national conversations around the recontextualization, amendment, and removal of monuments, and uses veiling as a launch point within the work. The draped statue, waiting to be uncovered for the first time, is full of promise, potentially commemorating the achievements and values cherished by its community. The tarped statues is an abstracted mistake, waiting for erasure, and is estranged from its community. The Killing Time wall sculptures (2017-2019) function visually within the language of map making and migration while reflecting on the power to restrain and to restrict movement. Handcuffs, chains, jewelry, and other unexpected materials invoke ideas of mass incarceration, fetish, cartography, and spatial dislocation.

Edra Soto’s projects are motivated by civic and social actions, often prompting viewers to reconsider cross-cultural dynamics, the legacy of colonialism, and personal responsibility. Let Love Win (2020) is a personal stand for the current social justice movement and features portraits of hundreds of African American victims of police brutality embossed onto shaped metal—or votives, inspired by Mexican and Latin American milagros. Open 24 Hours (2016-ongoing) is a literal observation of the ground around the artist’s underserved neighborhood in Chicago. Since 2016, Edra Soto has turned her daily dog walks into what she has likened to urban beachcombing: collecting discarded liquor bottles. The artist strips her findings of their branded labeling and plays up the simple elegance of the bare bottles by displaying them on decorative panels inspired by the painted wrought-iron screens that commonly adorn homes in her native Puerto Rico. Open 24 Hours traces a long history of cultural marginalization, exchange, and revival, and explores notions of colonialism, migration, visibility and invisibility.

For further information and inquiries, please contact us at 310-838-6000, or email: gallery@luisdejesus.com.

News

KAMBUI OLUJIMI AND EDRA SOTO'S WORK SELECTED AS LEILANI LYNCH'S TOP PICKS FOR UNTITLED, ART MIAMI BEACH 2020

December 3, 2020

Leilani Lynch, curator at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami selected a group of works to highlight as part of the virtual UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach art fair. Within her selection both Edra Soto and Kambui Olujimi's installation works were featured.

MUSÉE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN DE MONTRÉAL RECENTLY AQUIRED PIECE BY NICOLAS GRENIER

WORK WILL ALSO BE INCLUDED IN GROUP SHOW, DES HORIZONS D'ATTENTE

November 25, 2020

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Nicolas Grenier's painting From Our Position, Yours is a Mystery (2017), was acquired by the Musée D'Art Contemporain De Montréal, Canada. This work will also be show in upcoming group show, Des Horizons D'Attente, which will showcase the museum's 21 new aquisitions.

NICOLAS GRENIER CURRENT FELLOW AND INTERNATIONAL RESIDENT AT ZK/U CENTER FOR ART AND URBANISTICS

November 25, 2020

The gallery is pleased to announce that Nicolas Grenier is a fellow and part of the international artist residency at ZK/U Center for Art and Urbanistics. While he is there he will be working on a project based on a system allowing a paradigm shift toward a post-capitalist economic culture. At this stage he is working with a programmer to build a non-monetary exchange mechanisms, while also designing the architecture for a common pool of resources that could be shared between people in a small group, a neighborhood or a city.

KAMBUI OLUJIMI RECEIVES COLENE BROWN ART PRIZE

BRIC AWARDS $100,000 to 10 NEW YORK CITY-BASED ARTISTS

November 11, 2020

The gallery is pleased to announce that Kambui Olujimi has received a 2020 Colene Brown Art Prize, which awards $10,000 to New York-based artists via BRIC.

Now in its second year, the award is underwritten by artist and former BRIC Board Member Deborah Brown and her sister Ellen Brown in memory of their late mother, Colene Brown, and is funded through the Harold and Colene Brown Family Foundation.

Drawings from Kambui Olujimi's series When Monuments Fall is currently on view at the gallery as part of the group exhibition Unreachable Spring through December 19, 2020.

EDRA SOTO RECEIVES JOAN MITCHELL FOUNDATION GRANT

October 22, 2020

The gallery is pleased to announce that Edra Soto has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant is an unrestricted award in which $25,000 is granted to 25 different artists from throughout the United States. Selected artists are first nominated by artist peers and arts professionals from throughout the United States and then chosen through a multi-phase jurying process, which this year was conducted virtually. The 2020 artist cohort represents a wide range of creative approaches and backgrounds as well as ethnicities, ages, and geographic locations—further enumerated below. In addition to the financial award, grantees also gain access to a network of arts professionals, who can provide consultations on career development and financial management.

Edra Soto is currently part of group show, Unreachable Spring, currently on view.

Press

BKREADER

BRIC AWARDS $100,000 to 10 NEW YORK CITY- BASED VISUAL ARTISTS BRIC November 11, 2020

BRIC has announced the ten winners of its second annual Colene Brown Art Prize, which awards $10,000 to New York-based artists yet to receive institutional support.

Of the 2020 recipients, Zachary Fabri, Christophe Roberts and Scherezade Garcia are based in Brooklyn. The other winners are: Caitlin Cherry, Nate Lewis, Joiri Minaya, Kambui Olujimi, Erwin Redl, Naomi Safran-Hon and Michelle Segre.

View BKReader.com

TORONTO LIFE

THE 10 MOST COVETABLE PIECES FOR SALE AT ART TORONTO November 5, 2020

Montreal-based painter Nicolas Grenier places recognizable diagrammatic shapes in colourful gradients to mimic political affiliation graphs and charts. While viewing the artwork, visitors are provided with an Approval Matrix sheet—via PDF for online visits—to map their positions on the current state of the world and where it’s headed.

View TorontoLife.com

ARTFORUM

JOAN MITCHELL FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES 2020 GRANT RECIPIENTS November 3, 2020

The New York–based Joan Mitchell Foundation has named the twenty-five artists who are recipients of this year’s Painters & Sculptors grants, which are meant to assist artists making exceptional work and who are seen as deserving greater national recognition. Each grantee will receive $25,000 in unrestricted funds. The foundation, which was formed in 1993 to celebrate and expand the abstract painter’s vision, noted in a statement that it felt especially compelled to make the awards this year, given the current landscape in which artists are operating.

View Artforum.com