New York, NY | April 25, 2024 – JO-HS, a global gallery specializing in emerging contemporary art, debuts its inaugural exhibition in New York, titled Techne. A curated showcase of works by 10 emerging Latin American artists, Techne grapples with how technology shapes humanity and underscores JO-HS as a conduit for cultural community between Mexico City and New York City. Techne features drawings, sculptures, and paintings by contemporary Latin American artists Alicia Ayanegui, Sonia Bandura, José Eduardo Barajas, Celeste (an artist duo by María Fernanda Camarena and Gabriel Rosas Alemán), Alejandro Contreras, Chavis Mármol, Floria González, Rodrigo Red Sandoval, Hilda Palafox, and Ismael Sentíes. Techne will be on view May 9 – June 20, 2024 in Tribeca.
“Having the opportunity to showcase this dynamic group of artists as our first show at JO-HS in New York is incredibly fulfilling,” said Elisabeth Johs, Founder & Director of JO-HS. “JO-HS New York is a symbol of our mission to expand our presence across two important regions, both deeply rooted in artistic history. Techne brings together a dynamic group of Latin American artists who offer a unique perspective on technology and how it exists in our society today. This group of work spans various artistic mediums, inspiring thought-provoking conversations around technology’s impact on us as human beings.”
JO-HS NEW YORK
JO-HS New York follows the success of JO-HS CDMX, which is located in a historic and architecturally important brutalist building from the 1970s. The building was sensitively renovated by founder Elisabeth Johs to create a vibrant exhibition and year-round artist residency program that debuted in 2021. This spirit of engagement has expanded as a multi-directional bridge with JO-HS’ New York City exhibition program kicking off at 121 Watts Street, which was once a textile factory steeped in a rich history as an artists mecca that housed the studios of Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham.
TECHNE
Inaugurating JO-HS’s New York City program, Techne examines how technology shapes human experience. The Greek root for technology/tecnología, techne has no direct translation in English or Spanish. Connoting “art,” “craft,” “knowledge,” and “technical skill,” techne is an expansive concept encompassing the many ways we give form to the world. In Techne, sculptures, paintings, and works on paper examine diverse technologies as tools and obstacles for human expression and experience.
The artists behind Techne exhibition each take a different approach toward the overarching theme. Ayanegui’s work mutates based on each place she lives – folding in new colors, shapes, and feelings as they appear; the works featured here examine light as both tool and challenge in painting; Bandura examines visual discourses surrounding nature and biology, excavating how discursive processes produce ideas about organisms as technical-natural entities and the symbiotic relationships that operate at all scales of life; Barajas uses painting to monitor luminous atmospheres, color patterns, and emotional climates; Celeste integrates diverse media and disciplines in their practice to conduct a negotiation that expands concentrically to gradually encompass other collaborators and spectators within the workings of an intimate exchange; González uses photography, video, installation, performance, and painting to create fantastical scenes that bring together past, present, and imaginary futures; Mármol,one of the most entertaining, critical, and prolific artists in the contemporary art scene in Mexico, uses a blend of humor and social critique applied through techniques such as painting, sculpture, and performance; and Sentíes’ drawings and paintings explore dialectics inherent to the landscape genre: abstraction and figuration, harmony and chaos, proximity and distance.
