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Looking ahead at the month, Something Curated highlights 8 of the most exciting art exhibitions taking place in New York this April.


Territorial Expansion of the Innermost Continent at Black Ball Projects || Sarah Trigg (3 April – 26 May 2019)

Territorial Expansion of the Innermost Continent, the title of which connotes the results of an archeological dig, begins with five loosely figurative works, which are adjacent to a collection of abstract tabletop sculptures. The exhibition also comprises geode-like spheres and wall pieces created of paint and irregular form. These highly tactile works offer a reprieve from the technologized world.


Sydney Shen at New Museum || Sydney Shen (30 April – 28 July 2019)

Shen’s work creates narratives that tangle the relationship between fiction and reality, drawing from a range of sources like medieval accounts of the Bubonic plague to ‘90s slasher films. Her use of obsessive research in disparate areas makes this visceral environment she has created revel in terror and awe.


Jessi Reaves II at Bridget Donahue || Jessi Reaves (Until 12 May 2019)

Jessi Reaves’ newest exhibition features impressive Modernist influenced seats, shelves, sculptures and more. The artist is well-known for demonstrating the unique relationship between art and design throughout her practice, with various works that appear to be simultaneously furniture and sculpture.


I’m Blue (If I Was █████ I Would Die) at Koenig & Clinton || American Artist (Until 13 April 2019)

In American Artist’s first solo exhibition with Koenig & Clinton, the gallery space is completely transformed into an imaginary seminar room for law enforcement personnel. Visitors will find what resembles a classroom with desks and a blackboard upon entering as an instructional video appears to play, but instead shows a speaking digital character fabricated by Artist. Referencing the Blue Lives Matter countermovement in response to Black Lives Matter and examining questions of incommensurability, this show is a must-see this month.


Sifts, restores. MARY MITO at Downs & Ross || Mary Mito (Until 12 April 2019)

Mary Mito’s recent series comprise ten oil on panel works which draw from the artist’s 1966 activity and photographic archive of compositing a single mound of soil. The work terminates a closed loop between performative, photographic and painterly operations. Her paintings are characteristically uncompromising, rule-bound and precisely delimited.


MARK MANDERS: WRITING YELLOW at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery || Mark Manders (13 April – 24 May 2019)  

His “self-portrait as a building,” Mark Manders’ work with sculpture, still life and architectural plans allows the viewer to construct their own meaning. The artist’s work was at first inspired by literature, and he has since moved on to explore the architecture of storytelling through structure rather than specific content.


All Your Fears Trapped Inside at JTT || Friedrich Kunath (Until 14 April 2019)

Los Angeles-based artist Friedrich Kunath’s solo exhibition features a focused installation with sentimental objects collected over the past twenty years. These objects are arranged in a small room with a bed, shelves, writing desk and television which plays a compilation of Kunath’s video work. His work relies on the power of emotions like fear, love, rejection and failure, and his current show suggest that people are the sum of their possessions.


Executive Order 9066 (Soul Consoling Tower) at Queer Thoughts || Jade Kuriko Olivo (Puppies Puppies) (Until 21 April 2019)

Jade Kuriko Olivo (Puppies Puppies) is a prominent Latinx transgender female artist, whose newest exhibition will be on show at Queer Thoughts until 21 April. The show features a large photograph depicting a “Soul Consoling Tower,” a monument constructed in 1943 as one of a network of internment camps imprisoning Americans of Japanese descent and Japanese immigrants to America. Executive Order 9066 is a flyer based off of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of the order in 1942, which lead to the forced removal of these Japanese Americans and immigrants.



Feature image: Jessi Reaves at Bridget Donahue, 2016 (via Bridget Donahue)

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