Exhibition
February 28–June 9, 2023

Clae Lu: Playroom

The International Studio & Curatorial Program presents Playroom, a solo exhibition of work by Clae Lu, recipient of The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund residency at ISCP, curated by Kathy Cho. Playroom presents a variety of experimental works that range from painting, to a meditative installation, to sonic compositions on the 古筝 (gu zheng), also known as the Chinese zither. All of these creative practices are meant to create space for and support the artist’s chosen families, their closely connected community.

In recent years Lu has collaborated with fellow artists in experimental music and dance performances. During their residency at ISCP, however, Lu has refocused on their individual practices, returning to mediums and themes that bring pleasure, joy, and comfort. Central to the exhibition is an installation inviting audiences to rest, reflect, and meditate to a sonic playlist created together with musician and sound artist Ben Florencio. The installation serves as an idealized architectural facsimile of the various spaces where Lu seeks out and nurtures communal kinship. A constellation of wall hanging works documents Lu’s everyday life: paintings of a family style meal and of their main instrument, the 古筝 (gu zheng). Dating as far back as 400 BCE, this traditional Chinese string instrument is usually plucked. Lu’s experimental approach to playing it is an intentional act of queering, a reclamation of how the 古筝 (gu zheng) can be understood and explored. Throughout the exhibition, Lu asks, “What does it mean to celebrate the mundane?” and “How does my community come together to create new traditions?” 

An additional public program will be announced at a later date before the exhibition closes in June.

Clae Lu (they/them) is a queer, second generation Han Chinese American from Queens, NY. They identify as an artist, designer, cultural worker, and 古筝 (gu zheng) musician working on  land that is unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape. Lu believes in the power of arts and grassroots activism to create spaces for conversation, reflection, and action. Lu has performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; MoMA PS1; Elsewhere; Brooklyn Museum; Movement Research; Symphony Space; and Abrons Art Center. They have shown work at The W.O.W. Project, Wook + Lattuada Gallery, and the Honolulu Museum of Art. Their residency at ISCP is sponsored by The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund.

Kathy Cho (they/she) is a New York-based curator who produces exhibitions, events, images, and writing to collectively archive loose narratives of lived experiences. Ongoing research areas include the visual and dialogic lexicon of (Asian) diaspora artists, and the physical and digital architectures of affect. They received an MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths, University of London, and were a 2020-21 Curatorial Fellow at The Kitchen.

Clae Lu: Playroom is supported by The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund. Additional support is provided by Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Council District 33; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

By visiting ISCP, you agree to abide by the following health and safety policies. Please make sure to plan ahead for your visit.

  • Groups of four or more are required to schedule an appointment in advance. Please write to info@iscp-nyc.org
  • All visitors are encouraged to maintain social distancing while at ISCP.
  • Masks or face coverings are strongly recommended but not mandatory.
  • Hand sanitizer will be available for visitors.
  • If you have fever, chills, cough, muscle pains, headache, loss of taste or smell, or think you may have been exposed to COVID-19 prior to your visit, please contact us to reschedule.
  • An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 and other infectious conditions exists in any public space where people are present. Those visiting the International Studio & Curatorial Program voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19, other infectious conditions, and other hazards that may be present in a public space.

 

 

Open Hours: Monday–Friday, 10:30am–5:30pm
Download Press Release (PDF)

Participating Residents

ISCP Talk
February 21, 2023, 6–7pm

Curators at Work: Anamaría Garzón Mantilla

For this live event, ISCP curator-in-residence Anamaría Garzón Mantilla will speak about her curatorial practice, discussing a selection of her exhibitions, publications, and presenting institutions. She will focus on collaborative curatorial projects including Estado Fósil, a multimedia investigation of oil exploitation in Ecuador, and the platform Arte + Activismos, which fosters dialogues between artists and activists. 

A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Anamaría Garzón Mantilla is an art historian and professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. She is the director of post(s), an academic journal dedicated to art, culture and new media. She holds an MA in Contemporary Art from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York and is currently a PhD student in the Art History and Theory program at the University of Essex.

Her work focuses on the transitional period between modern art and contemporary art in Latin America. She has presented research projects at academic conferences and has curated several exhibitions of contemporary Ecuadorian artists. From 2017 to 2020, Garzón was Creative Director of Khôra, a non-profit experimental space located in Quito. 

This program is supported by the Jane Farver Memorial Fund; Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

By visiting ISCP, you agree to abide by the following health and safety policies. Please make sure to plan ahead for your visit.

  • Groups of four or more are required to schedule an appointment in advance. Please write to info@iscp-nyc.org
  • All visitors are encouraged to maintain social distancing while at ISCP.
  • Masks or face coverings are strongly recommended but not mandatory.
  • Hand sanitizer will be available for visitors.
  • If you have fever, chills, cough, muscle pains, headache, loss of taste or smell, or think you may have been exposed to COVID-19 prior to your visit, please contact us to reschedule.
  • An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 and other infectious conditions exists in any public space where people are present. Those visiting the International Studio & Curatorial Program voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19, other infectious conditions, and other hazards that may be present in a public space.
6–7pm

Participating Residents

Event
February 17, 2023, 6–8pm

Undoing Exhibition: Closing Performances by HaeAhn Woo Kwon, and Ka Yan and Mountain

To mark the final day of Water Works, ISCP will host performances in the exhibition space by HaeAhn Woo Kwon and artist duo Ka Yan and Mountain.

The evening will begin with HaeAhn Woo Kwon adopting her piece It Gives Skin (2022), on view at the gallery. The fiberglass shower base sculpture will be used  as a palimpsest for a text titled “Undoing Exhibition.” 

Physically repositioned in the exhibition space, the sculpture will become a support structure for sound artists, Ka Yan and Mountain. They will present  a sound bath with crystal singing bowls, and a poem as incantatory meditation, drawing from strategies of Reiki transmission (universal energy). According to the artist duo, “The mix of high vibrational sonic experiences will activate the water within us at a cellular level, assisting in a realignment of the atomic joy accessible to all.” 

Together, the performances reflect the exhibition themes of cleansing and ritual, asking what it means to feel clean as physical, spiritual, and mental modes of being.

Water Works is a group exhibition in the second-floor gallery curated by Danielle Wu that brings together six artists who turn to the washroom as an aesthetic resource: Hana Al-Saadi, Laurie Kang, Ajay Kurian, Mia Raadik, Pauline Shaw, and HaeAhn Woo Kwon.

About the artists:

HaeAhn Woo Kwon is a Canada-based artist whose installations and assemblages bring together disparate materials and means of production, including hand-built, manufactured, found, and organic objects and images. Their work often reflects on the availability of excess goods and the necessity of inventiveness in our current moment. She has exhibited work at Franz Kaka, Toronto; Jack Barrett Gallery, New York; and Clint Roenisch, Toronto, among others.

Ka Yan and Mountain is a New York-based artist duo. Ka Yan is an interdisciplinary artist and film director from Hong Kong. Dedicated to bridging worlds together, Ka Yan expresses the transient complex beauty within a diaspora, integrating filmmaking, photography, publishing, performance, text, and installations. Her latest short film It’s The Most Beautiful Before It’s Gone (2021) was screened and performed at the Queens Museum. Mountain is a Filipino-American composer, music producer and researcher whose work with Pique Project has been featured by Adult Swim, Adidas, Warp Records, Apple Music, and Queens Museum. Currently he is working on a sound therapy project researching alternative access methods into memory through a process called “song threading.” 

This program is supported, in part, by Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

By visiting ISCP, you agree to abide by the following health and safety policies. Please make sure to plan ahead for your visit.

  • Groups of four or more are required to schedule an appointment in advance. Please write to info@iscp-nyc.org
  • All visitors are encouraged to maintain social distancing while at ISCP.
  • Masks or face coverings are strongly recommended but not mandatory.
  • Hand sanitizer will be available for visitors.
  • If you have fever, chills, cough, muscle pains, headache, loss of taste or smell, or think you may have been exposed to COVID-19 prior to your visit, please contact us to reschedule.
  • An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 and other infectious conditions exists in any public space where people are present. Those visiting the International Studio & Curatorial Program voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19, other infectious conditions, and other hazards that may be present in a public space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6–8pm