Honor Fraser celebrated two exhibitions on June 16, 2023. Catalyst, a group exhibition is presented in collaboration with EPOCH Gallery. We Are They: Glitch Ecology and the Thickness of Now, another group show opened as well. Don’t fret, if you missed the art party, both shows can be viewed through August 19, 2023.
Honor Fraser Catalyst
Known for its genre bending online exhibitions and virtual reality (VR), EPOCH is partnering with Honor Fraser to mount its first hybrid physical/virtual installation. The exhibition features seven internationally celebrated artists who have developed artworks situated within a speculative 3D model of LACMA’s forthcoming building, designed by Peter Zumthor. The artists featured in Catalyst use their artwork to provoke as well as accelerating change, whether that be personal, social, or political.
About EPOCH
Peter Wu+ founded EPOCH in 2020 in the nascence of quarantine. EPOCH was created in response to museums and galleries shutting down globally, when artists lost exhibition opportunities, and means of financial support. As an artist-run virtual exhibition space, EPOCH continues to serve as a platform for showcasing and disseminating contemporary digital art practices. Immersive 3D environments serve as an experimental space where the context for each EPOCH exhibition allows for groups of artists to respond to current socio-political events. By inviting established and emerging artists who work in both digital and analog mediums, EPOCH has established itself as a virtual destination by . Therefore challenging the status quo with a critical and innovative approach to curation and exhibition building. With a focus on community building and inclusivity, EPOCH represents a significant contribution to the field of contemporary art and its engagement with digital technologies.
The Collaboration
Catalyst, EPOCH’s collaboration with Honor Fraser, is the third chapter in a triptych of virtual exhibitions. Each is set within and around a digital representation of LACMA’s campus. The first two exhibitions in EPOCH’s LACMA Saga Phantom Limb and Echoes can be understood as architectural precursors to Catalyst. The exhibition environment in Phantom Limb was inspired by and modeled after the demolition of LACMA’s Ahmanson building. The term “phantom limb” in context suggests a sense of loss and displaced feelings of pain and growth. The second exhibition in the series, Echoes, was developed in collaboration with LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab. It was modeled after the physical excavation area of LACMA’s east campus. It also included neighboring locales around Wilshire Boulevard. The term “echo” refers to the reverberation of ideas, movements, or events that, like sound waves, collide and coalesce at sites of creative exchange.
We Are They: Glitch Ecology and the Thickness of Now
The second exhibition is titled We Are They: Glitch Ecology and the Thickness of Now, and is curated by gallery director Jamison Edgar. The solo exhibition charts the blurry boundaries between human networks, ecological systems, and the technologies that give form to our so-called “man-made” geological epoch. Additionally, it is a love letter to a world in revolt, and to those who join in solidarity with our planet’s outrage. It features twenty-two artists who trouble enshrined notions of anthropocentrism while navigating the social, spiritual, and technological margins around them.
The exhibition’s title borrows language from Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto. It weaves her now infamous theories of human/machine entanglement within a cosmology of Indigenous, queer/trans, Black feminist, and more-than-human knowledge practices. The phrase “the glitch,” first gained mass popularity during the 1960’s space race when physicists and federal administrators were reckoning with the science-fueled fantasies of separating human beings from the Earth’s orbit. The exhibition accentuates these extraterrestrial origins. However it forgoes glitch’s colloquial comparisons with error to amass a roster of artists who instead glitch to subvert and decenter human ego within social and ecological hierarchies.
CLICK HERE to find out about past exhibitions for this gallery.
On view: June 16, 2023 – August 19, 2023
What: New Exhibitions
Where: Honor Fraser, 2622 S. La Cienega Blvd., LA, 90034
When: Running thru August 19, 2023
Website: https://honorfraser.com/
