Foto Relevance is pleased to present The Body as Memory, a group exhibition that brings together the work of three artists — Caleb Cole, Nick Simko, and Gabriel García Román — who each work with concepts of identity and queerness, both reaching into the past and looking toward the future. The group show, curated by Suzanne Zeller, Assistant Director, will run from January 15, 2022 through March 19, 2022. The Body as Memory investigates the ways in which the body interacts with the environment around it—the cultures it is born into, how it is viewed, how it views itself within that context, and how it imagines itself. It recognizes the queer body as a historical site of injustice, yet, through acceptance, presents the body as a site of exultation (and exaltation) instead.
Caleb Cole, Nick Simko, and Gabriel García Román each tackle concepts of identity and queerness through the lens of their own unique experiences. Having grown up with a passion for thrifting and second-hand objects, Cole’s work reflects a deep desire to connect with histories lost to time, stories that are just as personal as they are collective. Simko’s interest in intersections of technology and authenticity tie into this discussion of recorded histories, questioning what is missing from the narrative and how much of that which remains is artifice. Simko tests the limits of photography’s ability to express his own queerness in textural, spatial, and atmospheric ways. García Román’s background in the Roman Catholic church inspired him to co-opt the aesthetics of traditional religious iconography to elevate queer beings of color who are underrepresented in and often pushed to the margins of Western communities.
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Nick Simko
Fragmentia -
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Nick Simko
Allegory of Art History, 2012 Tapestry fragments woven from digital composite file on a computerized jacquard loom, rare earth magnets
70 x 108 inches -
Nick Simko
High Drama, 2015 Tapestry fragments woven from digital composite file on a computerized jacquard loom, rare earth magnets
99 x 120 inches
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Nick Simko
Queer Dimensionalities -
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Nick Simko
Queer Dimensionalities, Sequence3(x), 2020 inkjet print on luster paper
20 x 15 in image on 22 × 17 in paper
Edition of 5 plus 3 artist's proofs -
Nick Simko
Queer Dimensionalities, Sequence 2(d), 2020 inkjet print on luster paper
20 x 15 in image on 22 × 17 in paper
Edition of 5 plus 3 artist's proofs -
Nick Simko
Queer Dimensionalities, Sequence 1(b), 2020 inkjet print on luster paper
20 x 15 in image on 22 × 17 in paper
Edition of 5 plus 3 artist's proofs
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Caleb Cole
Traces -
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Caleb Cole
Trace (scaffolding), 2021 Archival pigment print
30 x 24 inches
Edition of 6 -
Caleb Cole
Trace (living room), 2021 Archival pigment print
30 x 24 inches
Edition of 6 -
Caleb Cole
Trace (corner), 2021 Archival pigment print
13 x 11 inches
Edition of 10 -
Caleb Cole
Trace (checkered floor), 2018 Archival pigment print
30 x 24 inches
Edition of 6
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Caleb Cole, Purses
Interleaving from antique photo folios, pressed flowers found in vintage books, vintage photographs, second hand necklaces -
Gabriel García Román
Queer Icons -
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Gabriel García Román
Vivian, 2014 Photogravure w/chine-colle & silkscreen, handmade walnut and oak frame
10 x 8 in image in 18 x 15 in frame -
Gabriel García Román
Abdool, 2014 Photogravure w/chine-colle & silkscreen, handmade poplar frame
10 x 8 in image in 17 x 14 in frame
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Dorian, 2019
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Panda Dulce, 2018
Text by Panda Dulce:i am illegible and exquisite / scrappy + enduring / i am burning / a tenderhearted healer in search of healing / sacred pacific blue / wet nalu / i am a seismic force to be reckoned with / four generations of chinese portugese hawaiian immigrants seeking refuge in oakland chinatown / still seeking / a radar blip violently ill of void / young, pissed and becoming / mermaid, witch doctor and assassin / i have come to kill our colonizer with saxophone and flail / i am a criminal queer / a cosmic faggot with a thousand lives / snatched to the goddesses / we are the lost boys / ebbing and flowing / do not underestimate us / we are the future and your end / we have sworn to see, affirm, love and protect each other / the world is a closing door / and we, the holy unhingers refusing to knock / you will remember us / you will remember our magic /
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Gabriel García Román
Julissa, 2015 Photogravure w/chine-colle & silkscreen, handmade oak frame
10 x 8 in image in 16 x 15 in frame -
Gabriel García Román
Freda, 2016 Photogravure w/chine-colle & silkscreen, handmade oak frame
10 x 8 in image in 17 x 14 in frame -
Gabriel García Román
Erica, 2014 Photogravure w/chine-colle & silkscreen, handmade poplar frame
10 x 8 in image in 16.5 x 14 in frame
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He was a 2018 recipient of the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture’s artist grant and in 2019 was commissioned by the Leslie-Lohman Museum to bring his Queer Icons series into the streets for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots where 100 Queer Icons flags were marched down the World Pride route. In 2020, Garcia Roman was one of 10 artists in residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for Workspace, their flagship residency program.