Leopards in the Temple @ SculptureCenter

Leopards in the Temple

Lothar Baumgarten, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Nina Canell, Latifa Echakhch, Aleana Egan, Patrick Hill, Nina Hoffmann, Kerstin Brätsch and Adele Röder (DAS INSTITUT), Lucas Knipscher, Kitty Kraus, João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, Lucy Skaer, Kathrin Sonntag. Curated by Fionn Meade
Leopards in the Temple is a parable by Franz Kafka that reads as follows:

“Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.”

The group exhibition of the same name focuses on moments of metamorphosis, paradox, and formal adjacency, borrowing from the parable an ability to promote multiple readings of succinct forms and extraordinary occurrences. Protean moments where materials elide, transform, and overlay take place in the work of Lothar Baumgarten, Nina Canell, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, and Kitty Kraus, while the rules of image production are triangulated and problematized in the painting configurations of Patrick Hill, Lucas Knipscher, and Kerstin Brätsch and Adele Röder’s DAS INSTITUT. Kathrin Sonntag and Nina Hoffmann (working in collaboration) and the collaborative duo João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva present slide and film projections that explore the uncanny through acts of magnetism, doubling, and transference. And sculpture is framed and distributed as an effaced and often fictional artifact in the work of Latifa Echakhch, Aleana Egan, and Lucy Skaer. Gathering together an international group of artists, the works in this exhibition share an extra-linguistic interest in moments of translation and a resistance to fixed forms.

SculptureCenter