­­­­Using painting, drawing, and printmaking, Elijah Burgher (b. 1978) works at the crossroads of representation and language, figuration and abstraction, and the real and imagined. Drawing from mythology, ancient history, the occult, and ritual magick, Burgher cultivates a highly intimate code of sigils and emblems imbued with magical power to investigate the personal and cultural dynamics of desire, love, subcultural formation, and the history of abstraction. However, at the core of this multifaceted practice, Burgher “aims to know whether an artwork, any artwork, can possess meaning—to truly embody it somehow.” Burgher received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. His work was featured in For Opacity: Elijah Burgher, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Nathaniel Mary Quinn at the Drawing Center, 2018; the 2014 Whitney Biennial (selected by Anthony Elms); the 2014 Gwangju Biennial (as part of AA Bronson’s House of Shame); and The Temptation of AA Bronson at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; among others. He was recently a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Fire Island Artist Residency. Burgher’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, Art Review and Artforum, among others. He lives and works in Berlin.

Rendered with virtuosity in oil on linen, Joe Houston’s (b.1962) latest body of work is centered on the damaged genitalia of ancient Greek and Roman statuaries displayed in museums throughout Europe and North America. In Houston’s intimate paintings, isolated acts of iconoclasm are emblematic of the body as a perennial site of religious, political, and societal contestation. Houston’s emasculated icons examine the persecution and presentation of male desire, while also addressing the veneration and censure of art and artifacts across time and cultures. Houston pursued undergraduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned his MFA from Northwestern University’s Department of Art Theory & Practice. His honors include an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell Colony and the Bemis Foundation. His work is in numerous collections including the Allen Memorial Arts Museum, MIT List Visual Arts Center, RISD Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery. RUINS, Joe Houston’s first solo exhibition with the gallery since 1993 will open in our gallery viewing room on Friday, May 7, 2021.

Carlos Motta (b. 1978) examines multicultural political histories of those oppressed for their sexuality and gender in projects that engage an array of media, including installation, video, photography, and sculpture. Motta’s most recent works, which were made in quarantine, are ceramic death masks of artists and activists. An homage to Motta’s personal queer pantheon, each mask is also presented in a complimentary photographic composition inspired by the subjects’ work and life. PˑPˑOˑW will present two works dedicated to José Leonilson (1957-1993), whose poetic works in painting, drawing and embroidery synthesized art historical allusions, contemporaneous discourses in critical theory and his own lived experience. Leonilson died of AIDS-related causes in 1993. His haunting final body of work was presented at Americas Society, New York, NY in 2018. Carlos Motta received his MFA from Bard College and completed the Whitney Independent Study Program. His work was the subject of survey exhibitions including Carlos Motta: Formas de libertad at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Colombia (2017) Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile, and Carlos Motta: For Democracy There Must Be Love, Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden. His work is in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Barcelona; and Museo de Arte de Banco de la República, Bogotá, among others.

Chiffon Thomas (b. 1991) has developed an interdisciplinary practice incorporating embroidery, collage, drawing, and sculpture. Embracing the liminal space between figuration and abstraction, Thomas’ “impossible bodies” forcefully eschew easy classification in order to serve as vessels for personal memories and collective narratives. Reminiscent of the diverse, mixed media practices exhibited by David Hammons, Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, and Faith Ringgold, Thomas’ own application of materiality is a unique language for translating both shared and personal experiences.  Identifying as a non-binary queer person of color, Thomas contends with the crafted body in their work, examining wider issues of gender, race and sexuality. Thomas holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. They have completed residencies with the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME and the Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL and the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH. Thomas' work was featured in the recently released publication Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists. Their work is currently featured at SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY in the group exhibition In Practice: You may go, but this will bring you back and their solo exhibition, Antithesis, is on view at Kohn Gallery.

David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) was among the most incisive and prolific American artists of the 1980s and 90s. P·P·O·W will present The Boys Go Off to War, 1983, a large-scale and little-known hybrid of painting and collage. Featuring reconfigured American maps, a motif that recurs in some of Wojnarowicz’s most iconic works, this painting juxtaposes racks of aging meat with two shirtless male figures, one with their arm draped suggestively over the over. Wojnarowicz’s work has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The American Center, Paris, France; The Busan Museum of Modern Art, Korea; Centro Galego de Art Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; The Barbican Art Gallery, London; and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night, co-curated by David Kiehl and David Breslin, opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in July 2018. The widely acclaimed exhibition has been reviewed in Artforum, The Guardian, The New York Times and The New Yorker, among others. The retrospective traveled to the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid in May 2019 and the Musee d/Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg City in November 2019. A concurrent exhibition of Wojnarowicz’s films and photographs opened at the KW Berlin in February 2019. Wojnarowicz: Fuck You Faggot Fucker, a comprehensive feature-length documentary directed by Chris McKim, premiered in November 2020 to rave reviews.