On February 19, 2021 at 1pm, Blum & Poe will host an Instagram Live conversation to coincide with the arrival of the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter—the first powered aircraft to land on Mars. The art talk takes place in conjunction with its current exhibition “Above Below,” by Los Angeles-based artist Sarah Rosalena Brady, part of Blum & Poe’s  contribution to Galleries Curate: RHE. This show marks Brady’s first solo presentation with Blum & Poe.

Sarah Rosalena Brady and Mika Yoshitake will talk about the arrival of Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter, which aim to search for signs of ancient microbial life, characterize the planet’s geology and climate, collect carefully selected and documented rock and sediment samples for possible return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon. Giving examples from Brady’s practice, this conversation will focus on the potential presence of microbial life and water on Mars, and their role as incentives for space colonization in response to climate change.

Organized by Mika Yoshitake, “Above Below” features Brady’s 2020 double-sided textile series of the same name. The artist uses Jacquard looms that are programmed (one pixel per thread) to weave satellite reconnaissance images that project and reshape ice on Mars from a neural network inside Earth. The images reflect planetary changes in water and climate over millions of years captured from above and below. Resulting in distorted and broken pixels and boundaries between the Blue (desertification) and the Red (exploitation), a web of the past and future geographies.

Brady’s ceramic series, Transposing a Form (2020), explores indigenous coiling techniques and 3D printing using printed Enhanced Mojave Mars Simulant 2 (MMS-2), a chemically enriched blend of Mars regolith (Martian soil). These series will be complemented by Brady’s work, Virus Tumbleweed (2020), sharp, tentacular objects which are 3D prints of a virus simulation model. The work is inspired in part by Elizabeth Povinelli’s Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism (2016), which presents the virus as the ultimate terrorist with universal control over “Life” and “Nonlife” by radically altering its state. 

The art talk featuring Sarah Rosalena Brady and Mika Yoshitake will take place on Friday, February 19, 1pm PST on Instagram Live. 

On view: February 10–March 10, 2021; 

What; Art Talk
Where: instagram Live
When: Friday, February 19, 1:00pm PST
Website: https://blumandpoe.com/; https://galleriescurate.com/;