All photos courtesy of Rafael Soldi
softcore
featuring the work of Imana Gunawan and Lauren Fejarang
presented by FOUND Space
“There is something about vibration and its resonating effects on material bodies that generates pleasure, a kind of immediate bodily satisfaction.”
–Elizabeth Grosz
FOUND Space (in absentia) is pleased to present our inaugural exhibition: softcore, a two-person show featuring L.A. and Seattle-based artist Lauren Fejarang and Seattle-based Indonesian-American choreographer & performer Imana Gunawan, opening at Prairie Underground.
www.found-space.com
www.imanagunawan.com
www.laurenfej.com
All photos courtesy of Rafael Soldi
Fejarang’s sculptures combine cement, paper and fabric, to address questions around contradicting sensations that impinge the body. “It’s a place for someone’s body to feel barely balanced—pulled, turned and leveled out,” she writes. Fejarang’s work finds power in its relationship to the human form—the artist engages unlikely materials to create markers and sculptural records.
Jagged cuts meet smooth, contouring shapes, often projecting vertically from the ground or leaning vulnerably against a wall. Concrete slabs arch lightly to the contour of a shoulder blade and display wrinkles and folds evoking the imprint of a recently vacated bed on its surface. Conversely, cuts of flesh toned fabric introduce jarring contrast, both porous and supple. “It’s an unraveling and pulling together,” Fejarang finds in this work a catalyst for intersections and collisions that emphasize the softness of contradiction.
FOUND has commissioned choreographer, dance artist and creative director Imana Gunawan to conduct the gallery occupied by Fejarang’s sculptural forms. Given a space of her own, Gunawan will preface the installation of Fejarang’s sculptures, activating the empty room with an original performance Fejarang’s sculptures will be installed within the spectre of Gunawan’s body, movement breath and sweat.
While Fejarang’s works consider the relationship of one’s body to its immediate material context—figure and ground—, Gunawan’s practice speaks to the space her body occupies in a global context. After one of many returns to Seattle from her hometown of Jakarta, Indonesia, she states, “I can say that I’m now too foreign for here, and too foreign for home, but never enough for both.” As a child of the diaspora, she believes that bodies are capable of not only holding multiple, sometimes divergent stories, but also knowing when to let go of these stories when it needs to. Often using intricate props or set designs, Gunawan creates visceral, sculptural worlds that explore the idea of the body as a site—of conflict, joy, or even impalpability. Gunawan’s performance will be documented and on view for the duration of the exhibition. A live performance will take place at the opening reception.
Fejarang and Gunawan’s individual mark-making trace a path for the human form in physical space, inviting viewers to consider new definitions in our corporeal relationship to the world around us.
FOUND Space x Prairie Underground, 2018
