New York, NY – January 22, 2024 – 125 Newbury is pleased to present Animal Watch, a group show exploring the intimacies, affects, and subjectivities of animals. The exhibition opens on Friday, January 26, with a public reception from 6—8 p.m., and will remain on view through Saturday, March 2.
How does it feel to be the object of an animal’s gaze? What happens in the instant an animal looks upon us, meeting our eyes with theirs? The philosopher Jacques Derrida once reflected on the unsettling experience of being observed by his cat while naked in the bathroom. “It is as if I were ashamed,” he wrote, “naked in front of this cat, but also ashamed for being ashamed.” Like Derrida in his bathroom, this exhibition explores the architecture of feelings that enmeshes us in the world of animals.
The exhibition, which brings together an intergenerational group of artists and a diverse range of media and imagery, includes works by Gertrude Abercrombie, Alexander Calder, Ann Craven, Julie Curtiss, Jean Dubuffet, Natalie Frank, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Emilie Louise Gossiaux, Edward Hicks, Morris Hirshfield, Peter Hujar, Joan Jonas, Nina Katchadourian, Allison Katz, Jon Kessler, Lyne Lapointe, Robert Longo, John Lurie, Diana Michener, Yoshitomo Nara, Robert Nava, Richard Pousette-Dart, Lucas Samaras, Kiki Smith, Carolee Schneemann, Nolan Simon, Saul Steinberg, Bill Traylor, Mose Tolliver, and Jonas Wood. Through fantasy, fiction, fabulation, and fact, works by these artists celebrate, investigate, and make visible the deep entanglements between the world of animals and our own.
Traversing generations, geographies, mediums, styles, and points of reference—from the medieval bestiary to postmodern photography, from the folk aesthetic of Abercrombie, Hirshfield, and Traylor, to the surrealist imaginings of Gober and Curtiss, to the verité immediacy of Longo and Hujar, to the intimate encounters of Smith, Jonas, Goldin, and Schneemann—the artists in the exhibition depict
animals as a locus for affect, questing after their vivacity, intelligence, and otherness. Confronting both the strangeness and the familiarity of the creaturely world around us, these artists teach us what it means to be the animal we call “human.”
Animal Watch is curated by Oliver Shultz, with Kathleen McDonnell and Talia Rosen.
ABOUT 125 NEWBURY
125Newbury isa project space in NewYorkCityhelmed by ArneGlimcher, Founder and Chairman of Pace Gallery. Named for the original location of Pace, which Glimcher opened at 125 Newbury Street in Boston in 1960, the venture is located at 395 Broadway in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, at thecorner of Walker Street. Occupying a 3,900-square-foot ground-floor space in a landmark building with 17-foot ceilings, the interior of 125 Newbury has been fully renovated by Enrico Bonetti and Dominic Kozerski of Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture.
Guided by Glimcher’s six decades of pioneering exhibition-making and steadfast commitment to close collaboration with artists, 125 Newbury presents up to five exhibitions per year, with a focus on both thematic group shows as well as solo exhibitions by emerging, established, and historical artists. The 125 Newbury team is led by directors Arne Glimcher, Kathleen McDonnell, Talia Rosen, and Oliver Shultz, who work together to develop cutting-edge and thought- provoking exhibitions that reflect a global, cross-generational perspective.
