https://jessefirestone.com Jesse Firestone Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:55:54 +0000 https://jessefirestone.com en https://jessefirestone.com/Select-Exhibitions Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:48:33 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/Select-Exhibitions JESSE BANDLER FIRESTONE | CURATOR&nbsp; <img width="1335" height="2000" width_o="1335" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9d8df2c596a3d2b893c2cb74465e32519a6e3979630a9c270865337cde5e2533/02_jesse_HS.jpg" data-mid="248441166" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9d8df2c596a3d2b893c2cb74465e32519a6e3979630a9c270865337cde5e2533/02_jesse_HS.jpg" /> Jesse Firestone is a curator whose work foregrounds artist agency, public trust, and the conditions under which artworks are produced and encountered. His exhibitions frequently challenge conventional standards of display and institutional protocol, privileging experimentation, process, and site responsiveness. Over the past decade, Firestone has organized more than 60 exhibitions, commissions, and interdisciplinary programs across museums, university galleries, public gardens, artist-run spaces, and civic contexts. His curatorial practice frequently centers on conceptual and transgressive artistic practices while commissioning new projects with artists at pivotal stages of production. Firestone has collaborated with institutions including Wave Hill, Montclair State University Galleries, The Shed, BRIC, Harvard University, and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. His writing has appeared in Document Journal, Sculpture Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail, and exhibitions he has organized have been mentioned in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, ArtNet, ItsNiceThat, Another Magazine, Vogue Scandinavia, Galerie Magazine, and WideWalls. Select Exhibitions <img width="6192" height="4128" width_o="6192" height_o="4128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b006e2309c1e434c7f2415f0dd56b911da9c03164107dc61927aeb15ab9d7dd4/20251115-_DSC0769-Enhanced-NR-2-copy.jpg" data-mid="248439883" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b006e2309c1e434c7f2415f0dd56b911da9c03164107dc61927aeb15ab9d7dd4/20251115-_DSC0769-Enhanced-NR-2-copy.jpg" /> yachachiqniykunapaq Carlos Jimenez Cahua Below Grand An experimental social project centered on the repatriation of wakas—sacred and ceremonial objects from the Andean region. <img width="5870" height="4024" width_o="5870" height_o="4024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/86655d37ab5c52259a40fdc7c2be74ae831e3cd6237b967926888e8b3e2b69d8/20251115-_DSC0760-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="248439901" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/86655d37ab5c52259a40fdc7c2be74ae831e3cd6237b967926888e8b3e2b69d8/20251115-_DSC0760-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> The Christmas Show Christopher GambinoBelow Grand A crime scene meets holiday altar in this installation exploring ritual, Americana, and seasonal excess. <img width="3600" height="2205" width_o="3600" height_o="2205" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b9e947452835b9aa9e8c78d7a75a2cc63a18dfb674b5292b825e4226e55082bd/Copy-of-13-Installation-Image_Weist--Salane--Rivlin_BackenF2023.jpg" data-mid="217916387" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b9e947452835b9aa9e8c78d7a75a2cc63a18dfb674b5292b825e4226e55082bd/Copy-of-13-Installation-Image_Weist--Salane--Rivlin_BackenF2023.jpg" /> The Backend Montclair State University&nbsp; Thirteen artists showing heady and smart art about laws, logic, and institutional critique. <img width="870" height="1032" width_o="870" height_o="1032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/47c5d1425e1313a45cceefe2b8c3ba808a39cc105ad62921ebcdacf51c78321e/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.34.09-PM.png" data-mid="217917984" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/870/i/47c5d1425e1313a45cceefe2b8c3ba808a39cc105ad62921ebcdacf51c78321e/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.34.09-PM.png" /> Nothing Under Heaven Montclair State University Pensive, sensual, and decorative works by Joseph Liatela presented alongside historic religious artworks explore Catholic symbolism, trans identity, loss, healing, and reverence. <img width="2000" height="1769" width_o="2000" height_o="1769" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c8ae17c67373066086a0411be60e70d0318ced6aa28cafe91e8f75ef68e9cc69/Installation-Image-19_GarciaS2023-1.jpg" data-mid="248791333" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c8ae17c67373066086a0411be60e70d0318ced6aa28cafe91e8f75ef68e9cc69/Installation-Image-19_GarciaS2023-1.jpg" /> Dancing on Axes and Spears Caroline Garcia Montclair State University An interactive, artist-designed gym for anti-colonial residence. <img width="6744" height="4496" width_o="6744" height_o="4496" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d2a9d00602efb581c447b99440c513bf0610e8c1a61707a65a25050896b6ab0a/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0005.JPG" data-mid="248440182" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d2a9d00602efb581c447b99440c513bf0610e8c1a61707a65a25050896b6ab0a/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0005.JPG" /> Clocking in, clocking out Residency Unlimited Artists on labor and time. <img width="4800" height="3200" width_o="4800" height_o="3200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/947b4c9ebfd7989c6e2acb0789b52e0de2df88a85a596d5f5cc89539b6babb06/Eco-Urgency-wh_104a_.jpg" data-mid="248440161" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/947b4c9ebfd7989c6e2acb0789b52e0de2df88a85a596d5f5cc89539b6babb06/Eco-Urgency-wh_104a_.jpg" /> Eco Urgency Wave Hill&nbsp; Art in the age of climate change.&nbsp; <img width="2880" height="3600" width_o="2880" height_o="3600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2b2ba9d1f52c629a337adb81230d185f74ae4f293b232edf1fbbb955f985678c/Parra_6.jpg" data-mid="217917992" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2b2ba9d1f52c629a337adb81230d185f74ae4f293b232edf1fbbb955f985678c/Parra_6.jpg" /> the edge of flesh and blood Joseph Parra Montclair State University Erotic and hypnotic paintings by Joseph Parra merge Op Art and sculpture to examine the relationship between digital screens, the body, and desire. <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/99e2337b570de13f5d184d355e934ac6f4c45555f02b74735a66715b32cafca0/TFISINSTALL3.jpg" data-mid="217940908" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/99e2337b570de13f5d184d355e934ac6f4c45555f02b74735a66715b32cafca0/TFISINSTALL3.jpg" /> High Tide Satellite Art Show Investigative and solution-oriented artists occupied the vacant headquarters of a local political campaign. Featuring South Florida artists exploring land use, tourism, and climate change in Miami Beach. <img width="1724" height="1140" width_o="1724" height_o="1140" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/836853a10d97d0b58792348023bb55451c22e3900b2ebc08be2dd545d0fa2383/Screen-Shot-2024-09-11-at-10.26.55-PM.png" data-mid="217941276" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/836853a10d97d0b58792348023bb55451c22e3900b2ebc08be2dd545d0fa2383/Screen-Shot-2024-09-11-at-10.26.55-PM.png" /> Rekindled Kamari Carter Wave Hill A lamppost, rope, and game of hangman take on renewed meaning in this elegiac homage to Dinah and Bet, two Black women wrongfully accused of arson and lynched in Albany in 1794. <img width="1786" height="1236" width_o="1786" height_o="1236" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1d3fd8b882358265bc8c154e0308e273e3dab8f2aa264e0e783489c4f2a3e10b/Screen-Shot-2022-02-14-at-9.29.07-PM.png" data-mid="217941921" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1d3fd8b882358265bc8c154e0308e273e3dab8f2aa264e0e783489c4f2a3e10b/Screen-Shot-2022-02-14-at-9.29.07-PM.png" /> Tracing Trajectories Trestle Projects Selected works from the Hoggard Wagner Collection are paired with recent works by exhibiting artists, creating intergenerational and cross-contextual dialogues.&nbsp; <img width="5000" height="3545" width_o="5000" height_o="3545" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/de4e56ca9815a545ee9f5a39348aa93b7cd2537f0b1114daabcbf2b603999349/WINOGRADYAA21_o.jpg" data-mid="217941952" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/de4e56ca9815a545ee9f5a39348aa93b7cd2537f0b1114daabcbf2b603999349/WINOGRADYAA21_o.jpg" /> Hi-Tech Low-Tech Joseph Winograd Young at Art Museum An interactive exhibition exploring light, color, and perception through kinetic and lenticular sculptures. <img width="1400" height="1050" width_o="1400" height_o="1050" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c78bef7e3fdebdc9104cacf49c268f06d8d62a5d2f674df250cfabf4d47def6e/IMG_6188.jpeg" data-mid="217942949" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c78bef7e3fdebdc9104cacf49c268f06d8d62a5d2f674df250cfabf4d47def6e/IMG_6188.jpeg" /> Lesbian Matters BRIC Biennial Dildos, testosterone, makeup, and Stone Butch Blues. Organized with Phoenix Lindsay-Hall, this exhibition brought together objects sourced through a nationwide open call to reflect the expansive and evolving meanings of lesbian identity. <img width="908" height="1344" width_o="908" height_o="1344" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ba3dd56d4760e1f78fb3ed0eaaef71e631c015240f06c3beb5e3dd4085cb6798/Screen-Shot-2022-12-14-at-10.40.40-PM.png" data-mid="217944947" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/908/i/ba3dd56d4760e1f78fb3ed0eaaef71e631c015240f06c3beb5e3dd4085cb6798/Screen-Shot-2022-12-14-at-10.40.40-PM.png" /> The Nature of Family Portraits&nbsp; Wave Hill Staged within a former mansion once visited by Theodore Roosevelt, this exhibition featured BIPOC artists using flora, food, and domestic imagery to expand notions of family, lineage, and inheritance. <img width="2532" height="2532" width_o="2532" height_o="2532" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d92fa3d28091b67a32617826436b8955db2d258c15949cb5a191292bf298caf2/Ellie-Dent-TWO.jpg" data-mid="217945066" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d92fa3d28091b67a32617826436b8955db2d258c15949cb5a191292bf298caf2/Ellie-Dent-TWO.jpg" /> Time with others Mary Sky A group exhibition staged in the woods exploring uncanny bodies, waste, intimacy, and whimsy. <img width="1962" height="1156" width_o="1962" height_o="1156" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3e8b09e610e3bd87f626277956aee6663b911a09f20fd2bdb054ff7912169f47/Screen-Shot-2022-12-21-at-9.59.57-PM.png" data-mid="217945444" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3e8b09e610e3bd87f626277956aee6663b911a09f20fd2bdb054ff7912169f47/Screen-Shot-2022-12-21-at-9.59.57-PM.png" /> Earth in Peril&nbsp; David Benjamin Sherry Wave Hill Psychedelic and intimate large-scale photographs of America’s national parks by David Benjamin Sherry evoke both awe and ecological urgency. <img width="2442" height="1104" width_o="2442" height_o="1104" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f19c4074779360c751c57136629263d836649287bfcee39a504aa82caa44f6fb/LAURENCIA TO REZIZE 10_o.jpg" data-mid="217945503" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f19c4074779360c751c57136629263d836649287bfcee39a504aa82caa44f6fb/LAURENCIA TO REZIZE 10_o.jpg" /> Learning from Donald Judd beverly x Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts A culminating public program and workshop series in which artists constructed Donald Judd facsimiles from discarded materials, inspired by Donald Judd: The Multicolored Works at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts <img width="2448" height="2220" width_o="2448" height_o="2220" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a4768cf22bfaa63d650f4f2ee899459f8d14c780dd85cb4fcbb5a99b5012a635/THESOOTHINGCENTER17.jpg" data-mid="220583635" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a4768cf22bfaa63d650f4f2ee899459f8d14c780dd85cb4fcbb5a99b5012a635/THESOOTHINGCENTER17.jpg" /> The Soothing Center Trestle Projects A spa-like exhibition featuring interactive artworks addressing healing, pseudoscience, placebo effects, rest, and collective care. https://jessefirestone.com/Left-side-Navigation Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:32:29 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/Left-side-Navigation Jesse Bandler Firestone Contemporary Art Curator new commissions, queer practice, institutional critique CV Recent Exhibitions / Programs2022-2026When Honey Tastes Like Metal (Exile, anthropomorphism, propaganda)yachachiqniykunapaq(A self-organized repatriation) The Christmas Show(A holiday altar, a crime scene) Nothing Under Heaven(BDSM, god, and Andy Warhol) Clocking In, Clocking Out(erotics, e-bikes, ecstatics) The Backend (laws, logic, a lack thereof) Dancing on Axes and Spears(violence and veneration) Nesting(worldbuilding and wonder) Case Studies(a series of solo shows) Writing&nbsp;2019-2025Baron Books Performances2019-2025 Horizon Lies To Move Is To RememberSelect Exhibitions 2014 - 2021Earth In Peril(queer visions of the American West) Eco-Urgency(its now or never)&nbsp; Read more︎ ︎︎ https://jessefirestone.com/When-Honey-Tastes-Like-Metal Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:55:54 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/When-Honey-Tastes-Like-Metal 1. When Honey Tastes Like Metal <img width="2185" height="1152" width_o="2185" height_o="1152" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2952482417e3b5ec61723c07170497c02045b81ed563aa020458012ee1339112/1_PaperSwallowsRock_Still_Gravenor.JPEG" data-mid="245543944" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2952482417e3b5ec61723c07170497c02045b81ed563aa020458012ee1339112/1_PaperSwallowsRock_Still_Gravenor.JPEG" /> Vanessa Gravenor,&nbsp;Paper Swallows Rock, 2021, 4K or HD, Stereo Sound, 16 min 44 seconds When Honey Tastes Like MetalMona Hatoum, Vanessa Gravenor, Patty Chang, and Tanika Williams in conversation with Natalia Nakazawa and Shasha Dothan&nbsp; Curated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneAIR Gallery, March 8, 2026&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; A child learns to read against the backdrop of war. An infant coos. A porpoise dies. Letters are written. When Honey Tastes Like Metal brings together a selection of video works by Mona Hatoum, Tanika Williams, Patty Chang, and Vanessa Gravenor, framed by and expanding upon Shasha Dothan’s solo exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery, P is for Pomegranates, G is for Grenade, L is for Love. Within the exhibition, Dothan’s experience as the mother of a three-year-old grounds her ongoing consideration of violence and desensitization. <img width="942" height="720" width_o="942" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/85b90dd1955cb561d7de08ae6c365f740d9e48677cf2792e8c58e33aaec57264/IMG_7374.JPG" data-mid="245543945" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/942/i/85b90dd1955cb561d7de08ae6c365f740d9e48677cf2792e8c58e33aaec57264/IMG_7374.JPG" /> Mona Hatoum, Measures of Distance, 1988, Standard-definition video (color, sound), 15 min 26 seconds Here, the artists approach related concerns from distinct vantage points, engaging ancestry, exile, anthropomorphism, and wartime propaganda.&nbsp; <img width="2532" height="1170" width_o="2532" height_o="1170" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6c0c87aef4e0c88adf1f37178067a6e47abac44144b345ceb0d20b9477a97179/IMG_7376.PNG" data-mid="245543946" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6c0c87aef4e0c88adf1f37178067a6e47abac44144b345ceb0d20b9477a97179/IMG_7376.PNG" /> Tanika Williams, Genomic Memory, 2024, Digital transfer of film, 4 mins 22 seconds Across the works, a central question emerges: what conditions shape our capacity for empathy and love—or its absence? <img width="3900" height="2194" width_o="3900" height_o="2194" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c0d581ec3ee3e2f1ec1aa2526296eecfe1fbad4840a508e18db257cc7073463f/We-Are-All-Mothers_040822_colorcorrection.00_09_38_13.Still023.jpg" data-mid="245543962" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c0d581ec3ee3e2f1ec1aa2526296eecfe1fbad4840a508e18db257cc7073463f/We-Are-All-Mothers_040822_colorcorrection.00_09_38_13.Still023.jpg" />Patty Chang, We Are All Mothers, 2022, 4K or HD, Stereo Sound, 19 min 52 seconds https://jessefirestone.com/yachachiqniykunapaq Wed, 19 Nov 2025 19:12:05 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/yachachiqniykunapaq 2. yachachiqniykunapaq <img width="6192" height="4128" width_o="6192" height_o="4128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b006e2309c1e434c7f2415f0dd56b911da9c03164107dc61927aeb15ab9d7dd4/20251115-_DSC0769-Enhanced-NR-2-copy.jpg" data-mid="240857311" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b006e2309c1e434c7f2415f0dd56b911da9c03164107dc61927aeb15ab9d7dd4/20251115-_DSC0769-Enhanced-NR-2-copy.jpg" /> yachachiqniykunapaqCarlos Jimenez Cahua Curated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneBelow Grand, Nov 15 – Dec 20, 2025 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; For his second New York solo exhibition, yachachiqniykunapaq, Carlos Jimenez Cahua presents makiykupi, hoqmanta, an experimental social project involving the repatriation of wakas, sacred and ceremonial objects from the Andean region originally buried alongside the dead, dating from as far back as 3,000 years ago. Purchased on the open market and taken out of private collections, these wakas are now, for the first time since their looting, under the care of Andean descendants in their daily lives, residing in homes, offices, and, in one case, the dormitory room of a college student. A total of ten community members have agreed to collaborate with Jimenez Cahua and be the caretakers of these artifacts. Some of these artifacts, alongside other works, will be on view at Below Grand, a small gallery on the Lower East Side housed within a restaurant supply store. <img width="1882" height="1178" width_o="1882" height_o="1178" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/814acfe5f237a505ca7db3436aca66fed790c16fc8d6488a71fe95bfa4815aaf/Screenshot-2025-11-19-at-2.16.52PM.png" data-mid="240857185" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/814acfe5f237a505ca7db3436aca66fed790c16fc8d6488a71fe95bfa4815aaf/Screenshot-2025-11-19-at-2.16.52PM.png" /> yachachiqniykunapaq introduces a self-organized repatriation strategy that is both lived and symbolic, circumventing the sluggish pace of bureaucratic institutions and the false benevolence of collectors. Through the dispersal of artifacts into the direct responsibility of community members, Jimenez Cahua works with and against the idea of museums as both an institution and an aesthetic form that is typically self-positioned as the primary—if not the only—legitimate space to encounter archaeological and sacred objects. This assumption is, at its core, speciously corrupt: encyclopedic and collecting museums not only assert themselves as the sole caretakers of these artifacts but often serve as the retirement homes for collections sustained by the looting and displacement of these objects, in the first place. <img width="6192" height="4128" width_o="6192" height_o="4128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f2223115daf9032320f4495009ae25cd0fec03b96a16a8eb8e373b60de822c49/20251115-_DSC0771-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240857157" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f2223115daf9032320f4495009ae25cd0fec03b96a16a8eb8e373b60de822c49/20251115-_DSC0771-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> Jimenez Cahua approaches the gallery similarly, viewing this presentation as just one part of a much larger choreography of repair and return. There is, too, a kind of mirrored journey in these objects’ travels: once displaced from their lands through colonial extraction, they now meet again with people of Andean descent whose own migrations were often shaped by those same forces. Both the objects and their caretakers have traveled far from home, yet here—across centuries and dislocation—they are now reunited. <img width="6192" height="4128" width_o="6192" height_o="4128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fc9aadc2c3b17284c232b284620c2e56a8c78564cfa7c2267e436b0873bdcd61/20251115-_DSC0777-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240857259" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fc9aadc2c3b17284c232b284620c2e56a8c78564cfa7c2267e436b0873bdcd61/20251115-_DSC0777-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> Through this multi-pronged approach, he proposes a new meaning to the term “public trust”, insisting that stewardship can be entrusted to the living descendants of those peoples who created these objects, where a continuity of care emerges from shared lineage, practice, and community. There, within circles of friends, families, and local networks, often beyond the reach of an art audience, they continue to raise the very questions of care, restitution, and belonging that the exhibition sets into motion. <img width="3944" height="5916" width_o="3944" height_o="5916" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/78ef0bc117c0c6efca9301c370c613bfe32526a0d009f2dbf37734b6c6f887d1/20251115-_DSC0786-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240857270" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/78ef0bc117c0c6efca9301c370c613bfe32526a0d009f2dbf37734b6c6f887d1/20251115-_DSC0786-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> <img width="4128" height="6192" width_o="4128" height_o="6192" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/050d8ff6130cba6387a677ac33164076117b387bdd13cd35fc3d807c2661607d/20251115-_DSC0783-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240857293" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/050d8ff6130cba6387a677ac33164076117b387bdd13cd35fc3d807c2661607d/20251115-_DSC0783-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> Rather than offering closure, makiykupi, hoqmanta, meaning “in our hands, again” in Quechua, insists on complexity, foregrounding the ethical and practical dilemmas that attend any attempt at restitution. For example, repatriation to the Peruvian government is complicated by a lack of robust preservation of archaeological sites and Indigenous cultural patrimony, while leaving objects in foreign collections perpetuates their alienation from living traditions; yet dispersing these objects into domestic spaces presents its own risks and challenges as well. Jimenez Cahua embraces these potential pitfalls and imperfections, leaning into the messy and necessary work of devising community-based solutions for stewardship. <img width="3864" height="5796" width_o="3864" height_o="5796" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/caee05d56ca0397c9d4629ec0fedf934383022f6f5e5492cf32169b4268af343/20251115-_DSC0780-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240857297" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/caee05d56ca0397c9d4629ec0fedf934383022f6f5e5492cf32169b4268af343/20251115-_DSC0780-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> yachachiqniykunapaq and makiykupi, hoqmanta were carried out with permission from respected elders and cultural knowledge bearers, who affirmed and guided Jimenez Cahua’s initiative. Before their display and subsequent dispersal, each object went through a limpieza—a ceremonial purification involving fire, tobacco, coca leaves, musical instrumentation, and intergenerational community—thereby stripping away the residues of greed, theft, and harm that had accumulated during their time in private hands. Below Grand, too, has undergone a cleansing, so that these objects, and you, may be received with respect and care. <img width="1218" height="1146" width_o="1218" height_o="1146" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3f058b1d848ac8eac8b4b131fca95f4e69fca945fa050aa38706d0d86393cac0/Screenshot-2025-11-19-at-2.15.48PM.png" data-mid="240857161" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3f058b1d848ac8eac8b4b131fca95f4e69fca945fa050aa38706d0d86393cac0/Screenshot-2025-11-19-at-2.15.48PM.png" /> The collaborating community members are listed below. CU &amp; family, home, Union City, NJ GM &amp; family, home, Clementon, NJ CJC, office, Brooklyn, NY OG, office, New York, NY FABA, home, Princeton, NJ CM, home, Littleton, CO PM &amp; family, home, Bronx, NY AMQ, home, Harrison, NJ DF &amp; family, home, Deer Park, NY EB, home, Queens, NY https://jessefirestone.com/The-Christmas-Show Tue, 18 Nov 2025 20:33:52 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/The-Christmas-Show 1. The Christmas Show <img width="6192" height="4128" width_o="6192" height_o="4128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/86d907547b043e01e980170dcee1ce5b6cf7a7defb5db51687115a7c700ac0b1/20251115-_DSC0759-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240807194" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/86d907547b043e01e980170dcee1ce5b6cf7a7defb5db51687115a7c700ac0b1/20251115-_DSC0759-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> The Christmas ShowChristopher Gambino Curated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneBelow Grand, Nov 15 – Dec 20, 2025 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Someday, maybe All my dreams will be repaid Hell, I'd even play the maid To be in a show – “Broadway Baby” lyrics by Stephen Sondheim The Christmas Show by artist, playwright, and grand delusionary—or is it visionary?—Christopher Gambino is a crime scene, a holiday altar, and a cursed theatre starring sculptures-cum-bodies engaging in the unending encore of a new play. This new play, also called The Christmas Show, is written by Christopher Gambino, the artist, and features Christopher, the Star, performing her new holiday showcase, The Christmas Show. <img width="4517" height="3011" width_o="4517" height_o="3011" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/38c6ba31a859059ee364f86587f47370bd5b743031977779b224c354282e0480/star_02.jpg" data-mid="240807199" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/38c6ba31a859059ee364f86587f47370bd5b743031977779b224c354282e0480/star_02.jpg" /> <img width="4770" height="3180" width_o="4770" height_o="3180" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4ad84cb2b3d894d180eefc6ffff263ce392baf3b96fb3b19380fed35732cf372/imposter_01-1.jpg" data-mid="240807198" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4ad84cb2b3d894d180eefc6ffff263ce392baf3b96fb3b19380fed35732cf372/imposter_01-1.jpg" /> In a daisychain of fever dreams, innuendos, egos, and alter-egos, the exhibition is this play’s wreckage, staged by Gambino and building upon (stealing from) Jean Genet’s The Maids, a psychosexual drama of sweet reprise. Without its ending, without his roses, without his stage, Gambino finds his footing, his eternal refrain and refuge in this mythic origin story, staged in fragments, told in shambles, and performed by the very detritus that outlives him. So come see the show; it might be his last. For this act, Gambino slays and revives Christmas reverie: a holiday beloved and beguiled, covetous and indulgent, homicidal and, most of all, festive. The storefront window, now a signature of Below Grand’s programming, becomes a forsaken, gnarled display, containing the broken and used set pieces and accompanying props from an upcoming performance that has already happened—and will debut soon, eventually. <img width="6135" height="4090" width_o="6135" height_o="4090" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/40f4e5d491b5c4305089f7a6c5423a50aae3600305d069e3aeabb6b8affc39f8/20251115-_DSC0761-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240807196" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/40f4e5d491b5c4305089f7a6c5423a50aae3600305d069e3aeabb6b8affc39f8/20251115-_DSC0761-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> Stay tuned. Look fast. Clap hard. Because Christopher dies at the end. The Christmas Show also stars a maid, the Imposter, who works in the theatre in which Christopher performs this new theatrical work. On stage, and behind the scenes, glamour, class, torment, and megalomania collide. The maid, impersonating Christopher, performs her own version of the show backstage, then murders Christopher, replacing her for the finale. <img width="6001" height="4000" width_o="6001" height_o="4000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/39e60e4bbfdd784e4a59d81b87f52b945bee549579f4ee4234243549c2f96904/20251115-_DSC0762-Enhanced-NR.jpg" data-mid="240807197" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/39e60e4bbfdd784e4a59d81b87f52b945bee549579f4ee4234243549c2f96904/20251115-_DSC0762-Enhanced-NR.jpg" /> At Below Grand, you’ll see the scene of the crime: The dressing room’s chair split in two, avatars of the maid and Christopher. Around them, carnage. A velvet frame, exploded bouquets, a shredded uniform, a mirror shattered into gossip, and a boudoir drunk on its own collapse. Window displays are always theatre, always mausoleums—perfumes and blouses rehearsing for the lives they will never live. Gambino seizes this form, twists it, and casts himself as the eternal understudy in his own spectacular demise: the life of an artist, the life of a star. These sculptures are not just props but players, not objects but mirrors.<img width="5870" height="4024" width_o="5870" height_o="4024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/86655d37ab5c52259a40fdc7c2be74ae831e3cd6237b967926888e8b3e2b69d8/20251115-_DSC0760-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" data-mid="240807195" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/86655d37ab5c52259a40fdc7c2be74ae831e3cd6237b967926888e8b3e2b69d8/20251115-_DSC0760-Enhanced-NR-copy.jpg" /> This year, everyone gets coal, but bring Christopher his flowers. Please. https://jessefirestone.com/Clocking-In-Clocking-Out Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:32:25 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/Clocking-In-Clocking-Out 1. Clocking In, Clocking Out <img width="6932" height="4621" width_o="6932" height_o="4621" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/93a33a801f4527307af2011e9a802de6d30ae922fcb8852d5ca3efa40b379308/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0027.JPG" data-mid="237195390" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/93a33a801f4527307af2011e9a802de6d30ae922fcb8852d5ca3efa40b379308/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0027.JPG" /> Clocking In / Clocking Out Residency Unlimited’s 2025 NYC-Based Artist-in-Residence (NYCBAR) ExhibitionFeaturing Ayanna Dozier, Cato Ouyang, fields harrington, and Bat-Ami RivlinCurated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneAll Street Gallery, June 12 – July 2, 2025 Reviewed by Kimberly Drew &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Working for time. Time to breathe. Time to think.Thinking about work, working for time. &nbsp;Time organizes us. It dictates alarms and contracts, pings and permissions. It asks for our presence in exchange for serenity or a wage, our movement in exchange for rest or pain, our bodies in exchange for survival and death. Clocking In / Clocking Out emerges from within this loop of labor and time, considering how time and work structure the conditions of visibility, agency, and endurance. Across sculpture, photography, sound, and movement, the artists in this exhibition—Ayanna Dozier, Cato Ouyang, fields harrington, and Bat-Ami Rivlin—are brought together to map some aspects of contemporary labor not as a singular subject, but as a system—dense, diffuse, and embodied—that governs how we move through and make sense of the world, its construction, contradictions, materials, and, in turn, the self. <img width="4692" height="5865" width_o="4692" height_o="5865" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3e7c489f26875d153dba7bb0881dbe4698c82b19196d33fdba98a94f55bd0761/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0021.JPG" data-mid="237195559" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3e7c489f26875d153dba7bb0881dbe4698c82b19196d33fdba98a94f55bd0761/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0021.JPG" /> <img width="4898" height="6123" width_o="4898" height_o="6123" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a407733f4b1aa19d3f108c0f940ab1c6bb5340d1cddcaa6e47984bb37583ed54/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0020.JPG" data-mid="237195558" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a407733f4b1aa19d3f108c0f940ab1c6bb5340d1cddcaa6e47984bb37583ed54/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0020.JPG" /> Ayanna Dozier’s contributions in the exhibition foreground a kind of labor often criminalized and/or rendered invisible—sex work, especially when undertaken by femme bodies of color. Her ongoing project, Fear of Public Sex(ual Dissent), operates as both artistic practice and public pedagogy.* In the gallery, Dozier presents What Should I Address You As? (2025) and I’m Not a Pervert or Anything (2025), companion pieces of large-scale photographic prints on cowhide—materials chosen for their connection to skin, tactility, sumptuousness, and tension. Through this leather substrate, Dozier’s works become a confluence where leather fetish and overlapping aesthetics of power signal outward alongside a deep reverence for the skin of the animal that is now immortalized and sustained through the creation of an artwork. These prints are staged images that echo dynamics within transactional intimacy, such as S/M (Sadomasochism) and erotic dancing. Here, access and agency between audience, clients, and erotic laborers become skewed as viewers are denied the ability to “know” or “see” the laborers in these photographs who, through Dozier’s images, reverberate aspects of their own erotic labor onto viewers. In doing so, Dozier challenges the idea that intimacy or labor must be fully “known” to be authentic, instead asserting the legitimacy of sexual labor—like sex work—as real and present within public life. Just as these images teem with physicality, Dozier’s process is equally physical, even punishing. She’s developed a new technique to print on these surfaces, pushing against their resistance to simultaneously challenge material, machine, and process. Installed using fasteners and chains, these sex-swing-like installations become an extension of ongoing research and lived experience, resulting in photographic sculptures that don’t just depict erotic labor—they embody it. <img width="7521" height="5014" width_o="7521" height_o="5014" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f48c8bb88e15a506337df3462070ec061c9ded274b9f1fe0ec5b50b164b44c73/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0053.JPG" data-mid="237202664" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f48c8bb88e15a506337df3462070ec061c9ded274b9f1fe0ec5b50b164b44c73/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0053.JPG" /> Bat-Ami Rivlin’s sculpture intervenes in the gallery like punctuation—interruptions that challenge and dictate the flow of viewing. In her new installation, Untitled (tub) (2025), Rivlin slices one sheet-metal bathtub into six parts and reassembles them into a curved architectural structure that both greets and obstructs the viewer. The resulting object refuses easy utility – it is unwieldy and deliberately unproductive as it attempts to mimic the tub’s original function. These altered readymades no longer hold water; they hold tension, repurposed to question how objects—and the people who use them—are shaped by systems of utility, regulation, and class. Rivlin’s work doesn’t just reflect the labor of construction and hygiene; it speaks to the psychic weight of maintenance and function itself, as these bathtubs do not lose their recognizability despite their loss of use and, in turn, use-value. In this way, Rivlin is asking, can objects ever be free of their expectations and constructed demands? These speculations around material agency and performative relief extend, both ethically and conceptually, to people, places, and other things. <img width="7632" height="5088" width_o="7632" height_o="5088" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/22c21aaa958cf15f835b63ec696d732f716ea3e8d4b8042cb2b4308ff2428efe/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0043.JPG" data-mid="237202674" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/22c21aaa958cf15f835b63ec696d732f716ea3e8d4b8042cb2b4308ff2428efe/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0043.JPG" /> <img width="7630" height="5087" width_o="7630" height_o="5087" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/46a12e735a2397486acd50fadcfa731fdfa57ccf6106188f8711ab17fb3f5122/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0081.JPG" data-mid="237203357" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/46a12e735a2397486acd50fadcfa731fdfa57ccf6106188f8711ab17fb3f5122/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0081.JPG" /> <img width="6905" height="4603" width_o="6905" height_o="4603" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cb69a0467e5d5cf8b5c12fb7a0e4a6675dbe65c9790ea9ee6023f97a565c17f4/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0082.JPG" data-mid="237203358" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cb69a0467e5d5cf8b5c12fb7a0e4a6675dbe65c9790ea9ee6023f97a565c17f4/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0082.JPG" /> fields harrington presents photographs, a vinyl window decal, a sound piece, and a custom feather flag that draw attention to New York City’s delivery workers and the extractive labor systems that power their tools and time. In on peak, alert tones that drivers hear when new orders come in, create a disorienting sonic environment in the gallery that echoes the relentlessness of algorithmic management. It’s a digital metronome of modern exploitation and hunger. On the walls, and on one of the windows of the gallery, harrington's ongoing series of intimate photographs of e-bikes—absent their riders—offer ghostly portraits of labor’s apparatus. Shot largely at night, harrington’s photographs rely on an editorial style of documentation to highlight custom design motifs and utilitarian ingenuity unique to each bike. These machines, often shown resting, stand in for the workers themselves and speak to the cyborg-like expectations of the body today. Outside the gallery, a feather flag regularly used in advertising features the words “Leisure Time” alongside a close-to-copyrightable graphic that undercuts the fantasy of freedom promised by gig work. Yet harrington’s critique doesn’t stop at the urban surface. His research also traces the materials that enable this labor and the labor required to use these materials: lithium-ion batteries, powered by rare-earth minerals largely mined and processed in the Global South under violent and precarious conditions. With this research in hand, harrington suggests that the redistribution of time, not materials, might be the most radical act of all. <img width="5879" height="4703" width_o="5879" height_o="4703" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9833420084e84182bd2dff91bf23e54311e4be160148bd39f6bf93a8645e766c/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0123.JPG" data-mid="237203050" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9833420084e84182bd2dff91bf23e54311e4be160148bd39f6bf93a8645e766c/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0123.JPG" /> Time to ache. Time to fuck. Time to rest, resting to work. <img width="4633" height="6949" width_o="4633" height_o="6949" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5432e6e5f28c0745587fa7a2e5c2ef3bc520da937e8f7f80bba2f096d7efb552/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0032.JPG" data-mid="237202714" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5432e6e5f28c0745587fa7a2e5c2ef3bc520da937e8f7f80bba2f096d7efb552/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0032.JPG" /> <img width="4529" height="6793" width_o="4529" height_o="6793" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c02bf381a17f42877d7abb4d3f6c2539187e14b018a2df86d4a5289cefe8aebf/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0038.JPG" data-mid="237202715" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c02bf381a17f42877d7abb4d3f6c2539187e14b018a2df86d4a5289cefe8aebf/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0038.JPG" /> Cato Ouyang’s new sculptures are part digestive tract, part architectural ruin, and part devotional offering. The untitled works reference bodies, passageways, and sewage in response to how feminized and erotic acts of care are relegated to the bowels of society, yet are integral to social functioning. Made in the aftermath of their pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, during which Ouyang broke their foot, the works acknowledge that the cost of labor is often the body. Ouyang courts fracture, engaging enigmatic misuses of materials related to construction, industrial modeling, and traditional craft. From this multi-pronged and experimental approach to making, Ouyang’s sculptural tableaux suggest bodies disintegrating into infrastructure. Movement, restriction, and transformation loop together in a fleshy, restless circuit. The labor here is physical and emotional, a reckoning with what the body can carry, what it can remember, and what it must release. <img width="4589" height="5736" width_o="4589" height_o="5736" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/182272fad08a9ff982bbf5590e1fe304be348bfdd8f440a3b62539b44e9a7ea9/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0009.JPG" data-mid="237202713" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/182272fad08a9ff982bbf5590e1fe304be348bfdd8f440a3b62539b44e9a7ea9/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0009.JPG" /> <img width="4890" height="7335" width_o="4890" height_o="7335" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/166346b03f54d19f62c6f57b05c5c7942757e8891a2c530cc9e61b79564e7702/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0001.JPG" data-mid="237203319" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/166346b03f54d19f62c6f57b05c5c7942757e8891a2c530cc9e61b79564e7702/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0001.JPG" /> <img width="4856" height="7284" width_o="4856" height_o="7284" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8cf2a060884b2ce963473365aaada1328cb937f290ee5e1ccb6142e3fd2d3824/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0048.JPG" data-mid="237203321" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8cf2a060884b2ce963473365aaada1328cb937f290ee5e1ccb6142e3fd2d3824/Jesse-Firestone---Residency-Unlimited-2025-Artist-In-Residence-Exhibition---0048.JPG" /> Taken together, these practices refuse neat resolutions as they do not separate labor from desire, exhaustion from joy, critique from care. Instead, they linger in the mess of it all: labor is not just what is done, but what is endured, inherited, and transformed. There is no singular way to understand labor—only a series of encounters that reveal how tightly it is woven into the textures of our lives. The work of making a sculpture, and the work of surviving a shift. The work of printing on hide. Of listening for the next ping. Of dragging a broken foot through miles of dirt. Of challenging moral codes. Of claiming space. Or maybe, the work of simply refusing to work.Working for time. Time to die. Time to work. https://jessefirestone.com/The-Backend Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:32:26 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/The-Backend 2. The Backend <img width="3600" height="2205" width_o="3600" height_o="2205" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b9e947452835b9aa9e8c78d7a75a2cc63a18dfb674b5292b825e4226e55082bd/Copy-of-13-Installation-Image_Weist--Salane--Rivlin_BackenF2023.jpg" data-mid="237203371" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b9e947452835b9aa9e8c78d7a75a2cc63a18dfb674b5292b825e4226e55082bd/Copy-of-13-Installation-Image_Weist--Salane--Rivlin_BackenF2023.jpg" /> The Backend&nbsp;13 artists probe the nature of protocols and agreements prompting questions about ownership, production, notions of truth, and agency. Featuring Merlin Carpenter, Maia Chao and Josephine Devanbu, Johann Diedrick, Sophia Giovannitti, Liz Magic Laser, Ari Melenciano, William Powhida, Bat-Ami Rivlin, Rose Salane, Finnegan Shannon, TJ Shin, and Julia WeistCurated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneMontclair State University Gallery, September 14– December 1, 2023 The Backend, a group exhibition of works by thirteen contemporary artists, delves into the protocols and agreements that shape our society and the framework of our participation. These often hidden structures, such as the code behind digital platforms or legal systems that dictate the use and access to information, significantly impact our daily lives and cannot be skirted without voiding participation. Artists approach these arrangements often already in place without mutual agreement, revealing societal givens we are born into regardless of our willingness and understanding. <img width="3600" height="2020" width_o="3600" height_o="2020" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/21e504185ae47cde355367094fd4398de7e2d6a00d0c251a98206cca911f1172/Copy-of-20-Installation-Image_Salane--Carpenter--Rivlin--Powhida--Giovannitti_BackendF2023DSC3317.jpg" data-mid="237203442" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/21e504185ae47cde355367094fd4398de7e2d6a00d0c251a98206cca911f1172/Copy-of-20-Installation-Image_Salane--Carpenter--Rivlin--Powhida--Giovannitti_BackendF2023DSC3317.jpg" /> The artists aim to reveal these hidden structures and how they manifest, encounters with refusals, confusion, bureaucracy, and denial function like dog whistles to investigate further. The Backend title refers to a system of code that is responsible for the logic of any given software hidden from the user. Without the backend, there would be no front-end to experience. <img width="3600" height="2129" width_o="3600" height_o="2129" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9726647bdf4ca0317cf0b4de2c66726e63a30ba2f9ea9d19cc0499a57af352c7/Copy-of-05-Installation-Image_Weist--Salane--Rivlin--Powhida--Carpenter--Melenciano--Deidrick_BackendF2023.jpg" data-mid="237203447" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9726647bdf4ca0317cf0b4de2c66726e63a30ba2f9ea9d19cc0499a57af352c7/Copy-of-05-Installation-Image_Weist--Salane--Rivlin--Powhida--Carpenter--Melenciano--Deidrick_BackendF2023.jpg" /> The exhibition is placed in the space between the unseeable logic of systems and the presence of their power, exploring the dynamics at play within a social context. The artists reflect systems onto themselves, holding up a mirror to their encounters for others to bear witness. This approach takes different forms, such as adopting the language of contracts to show the system at work in real-time or relying on notions of refusal and obfuscation to withhold content from the viewer as ways to illuminate the architecture of the systems we move through. <img width="2564" height="2313" width_o="2564" height_o="2313" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/26ee71e6e047f760261aaf876c0ffe724fc532a5fea2c45b6c9068586c92b876/Copy-of-21-Installation-Image_Shin_BackendF2023.jpg" data-mid="237203452" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/26ee71e6e047f760261aaf876c0ffe724fc532a5fea2c45b6c9068586c92b876/Copy-of-21-Installation-Image_Shin_BackendF2023.jpg" /> The exhibition provides discreet and focused windows into how knowledge, culture, and people are circulated or restricted. Rather than the proposed solution, The Backend functions as an exercise in cartography, mapping ecosystems of malpractice. Together, these artists prompt larger questions about ownership and rights to access, notions of truth, manifestations of power, and the way these overarching systems dictate the conditions of our lived experiences. <img width="3600" height="2653" width_o="3600" height_o="2653" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/74a510f19b776ad0c08dfcd2881e34c7fc98f5a4ddf28d0559a02048afadfc24/Copy-of-12_Installation-Image_Magic-Laser--Chao_BackendF2023.jpg" data-mid="237203453" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/74a510f19b776ad0c08dfcd2881e34c7fc98f5a4ddf28d0559a02048afadfc24/Copy-of-12_Installation-Image_Magic-Laser--Chao_BackendF2023.jpg" /> https://jessefirestone.com/Nesting Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:32:26 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/Nesting 3. Nesting <img width="3600" height="2400" width_o="3600" height_o="2400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5bbd0da561b2d833f0f223c674f52b6942510e17a41da1e2620d6cf7524181a7/TLPS-2659.jpg" data-mid="237265537" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5bbd0da561b2d833f0f223c674f52b6942510e17a41da1e2620d6cf7524181a7/TLPS-2659.jpg" /> Nesting A solo exhibition showcasing work made by Natalie Collette Wood during her residency at Sugar Hill Museum.&nbsp; Featuring Natalie Collette WoodCurated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneSugar Hill Museum, June 7 - August 27, 2025 Highlighted in Whitehot Magazine Conceived during the artist’s residency at Sugar Hill Museum and shaped by her experience of pregnancy, Nesting leans into the biological impulse to build, adorn, and protect—a drive shared across species, histories, and homes. Birds, with their flamboyance, musicality, and instinct to create shelter, are a key inspiration. For Wood, the nest becomes not just a place of comfort, but a method of worldbuilding. <img width="7200" height="5400" width_o="7200" height_o="5400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/01a986bdd52fc011ee3d5259f0cd223fd2b775db004c5aeffd51af240361ba5f/nw_7-30-25_02.jpg" data-mid="237265608" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/01a986bdd52fc011ee3d5259f0cd223fd2b775db004c5aeffd51af240361ba5f/nw_7-30-25_02.jpg" /> Nesting presents sculpture, painting, and installation that collage real and imagined spaces where humans, nature, and creative processes intersect and take root. Wood’s sculptural installations, made from found and fabricated objects, frame nesting as an ongoing negotiation between interior and exterior life. <img width="7200" height="5400" width_o="7200" height_o="5400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5ef20cabc3b4fc2e359e93071b011700e5bef563b5859a0cdc7b60bdd8e7ab74/nw_7-30-25_01.jpg" data-mid="237265607" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5ef20cabc3b4fc2e359e93071b011700e5bef563b5859a0cdc7b60bdd8e7ab74/nw_7-30-25_01.jpg" /> <img width="7200" height="5400" width_o="7200" height_o="5400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b1f800340e32b181897ad8d5022f6c3528b382b15b4dd0c8463ef21ff3a65bca/nw_7-30-25_06.jpg" data-mid="237265535" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b1f800340e32b181897ad8d5022f6c3528b382b15b4dd0c8463ef21ff3a65bca/nw_7-30-25_06.jpg" /> Wood’s dreamlike paintings imagine lush, surreal interiors animated by plants, animals, and human presence. Separately, she draws inspiration from The Nest, a historic Harlem jazz club that welcomed non-segregated audiences and became a haven for Black expression. There, music and costume transformed performance into a collective shelter—improvised, relational, and alive. <img width="2400" height="3600" width_o="2400" height_o="3600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6e63c84dd5cce2476a946400d702e8a60689e067ecc4ddd4b6317ac35f53cc6a/TLPS-2743.jpg" data-mid="237265539" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6e63c84dd5cce2476a946400d702e8a60689e067ecc4ddd4b6317ac35f53cc6a/TLPS-2743.jpg" /> <img width="3600" height="2400" width_o="3600" height_o="2400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5b3c2b110f8ad356deebfe3091dd74261abb0767470a583f490b01685eba70d5/TLPS-2737.jpg" data-mid="237265538" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5b3c2b110f8ad356deebfe3091dd74261abb0767470a583f490b01685eba70d5/TLPS-2737.jpg" /> <img width="3600" height="2400" width_o="3600" height_o="2400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7ef12bfb873ab0f8ddc67848e36b89043bf1d1f06318b371347a291d93c67cb1/TLPS-2749.jpg" data-mid="237265540" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7ef12bfb873ab0f8ddc67848e36b89043bf1d1f06318b371347a291d93c67cb1/TLPS-2749.jpg" /> Grounded in the integrated vision of Broadway Housing Communities—which brings together affordable housing, early childhood education, and the arts via The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, Wood invites us to consider how we create spaces—both physical and emotional—that hold vulnerability, care, and transformation. <img width="7200" height="5400" width_o="7200" height_o="5400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/060918820e9ba01f3f03d0727122ac183432824053bdc355c027748f51f852e8/nw_7-30-25_08.jpg" data-mid="237265536" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/060918820e9ba01f3f03d0727122ac183432824053bdc355c027748f51f852e8/nw_7-30-25_08.jpg" /> Across these works, Nesting blurs the boundaries between the intimate and the social, the bodily and the ecological—inviting us to imagine how we make space for life, for inspiration, and for one another. https://jessefirestone.com/Nothing-Under-Heaven-1 Wed, 20 Aug 2025 22:25:45 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/Nothing-Under-Heaven-1 4. Nothing Under Heaven <img width="2500" height="1517" width_o="2500" height_o="1517" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/530ee2a8b013a318cb9bb3c555a95c88ffa74c0a6694b7e44e4945e0c424c497/Copy-of-Copy-of-Installation-Image-2_LiatelaF2022-1.jpeg" data-mid="237265906" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/530ee2a8b013a318cb9bb3c555a95c88ffa74c0a6694b7e44e4945e0c424c497/Copy-of-Copy-of-Installation-Image-2_LiatelaF2022-1.jpeg" /> Nothing Under HeavenAn interactive memorial for the LGBTQ community anchors works by Joseph Liatela, Andy Warhol (1928-1987), and religious art by Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) that invoke a range of stories to assess what it means to move together, remember together, and repair together. Featuring Joseph Liatela, Andy Warhol (d. 1987), Carlo Dolci (d. 1686).Curated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneMontclair State University Gallery, September 14– December 1, 2022 Reviewed by Emily Colucci in Filthy Dreams In Nothing Under Heaven, Liatela correlates spaces of communal experience – churches, medical institutions, and clubs – where promises of salvation and healing commingle in proximity to loss and grief.&nbsp; <img width="1500" height="1052" width_o="1500" height_o="1052" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/89c4e7544b159a17651e9591b0bbbe0fe8e4692cfe04e2c7cbba1240325727ac/Copy-of-Copy-of-Installation-Image-35_LiatelaF2022-copy.jpeg" data-mid="237265907" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/89c4e7544b159a17651e9591b0bbbe0fe8e4692cfe04e2c7cbba1240325727ac/Copy-of-Copy-of-Installation-Image-35_LiatelaF2022-copy.jpeg" /> By uniting these different spaces through a range of mediums and interdisciplinary analysis, Liatela reveals how these disparate environments hold similar contradictions that impact the way we perceive ourselves and each other. <img width="870" height="1032" width_o="870" height_o="1032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/47c5d1425e1313a45cceefe2b8c3ba808a39cc105ad62921ebcdacf51c78321e/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.34.09-PM.png" data-mid="237265859" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/870/i/47c5d1425e1313a45cceefe2b8c3ba808a39cc105ad62921ebcdacf51c78321e/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.34.09-PM.png" /> Within the exhibition, the search for absolution in a Church, the potential for restoration through medical care, and the rapturous escapism of the club become entangled. Liatela also unites ideologies of the afterlife – the veneration of patron saints, possibilities of dancing with the ghosts of loved ones, and the lingering specter of death in hospitals – to further pronounce their similarities while making their differences visible as well.&nbsp; <img width="798" height="1176" width_o="798" height_o="1176" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/640e1a8ea5097bcfcdc471f4b7cbda6fbb2e9a8bbd583dcbc4007ed55882f002/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.30.13-PM.png" data-mid="237265860" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/798/i/640e1a8ea5097bcfcdc471f4b7cbda6fbb2e9a8bbd583dcbc4007ed55882f002/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.30.13-PM.png" /> This tension is explored in relation to the complexities of a medical system that is heavily biased and inaccessible despite being positioned as a system of care. Liatela also draws correlations between devotion, salvation, punishment, and pleasure through sculptures that invoke the visual languages of both the nightclub and Catholic objects designed to put the body into a position of worship. <img width="1246" height="1124" width_o="1246" height_o="1124" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fdf4ff5b07ee5fd9173a2b7bb3c49bd7c4d0253919e76dd217d2c8e58b60cfbb/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.33.32-PM.png" data-mid="237265918" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fdf4ff5b07ee5fd9173a2b7bb3c49bd7c4d0253919e76dd217d2c8e58b60cfbb/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.33.32-PM.png" /> Similarly, Liatela frames the club as a necessary site of gathering and communion with queer ancestral lineages in response to marginalization. <img width="1252" height="1054" width_o="1252" height_o="1054" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b0c769cedac2ae9f612af89d2b797aeb1ccc04002fce61d80fb8550ae47f00c/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.33.43-PM.png" data-mid="237265697" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8b0c769cedac2ae9f612af89d2b797aeb1ccc04002fce61d80fb8550ae47f00c/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.33.43-PM.png" /> In searching for more moments of reprieve and solidarity within these larger systems, Liatela finds company with his chosen ancestors Andy Warhol, the Archangel Gabriel, who has historically been depicted without a fixed gender (painted by Carlo Dolci), and James Baldwin to whom the title of the exhibition pays homage. <img width="1414" height="926" width_o="1414" height_o="926" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d557a176820bb59ffaf08840878534e5f55839ac3e97fab3e7a0c34752bc9d82/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.29.54-PM.png" data-mid="237265796" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d557a176820bb59ffaf08840878534e5f55839ac3e97fab3e7a0c34752bc9d82/Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-9.29.54-PM.png" /> By giving visual form to the simultaneous yet dichotomous conditions explored within the exhibition, Liatela distills a complex network of emotional, spiritual, and bodily experiences. <img width="1000" height="1027" width_o="1000" height_o="1027" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8dbdf520a2a0d6985e00196d4ab93bf9e87402dd597f2e774ff5d1eb2c3236c3/Copy-of-Evening-Readings-3_LiatelaF2022-copy.jpeg" data-mid="237265908" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8dbdf520a2a0d6985e00196d4ab93bf9e87402dd597f2e774ff5d1eb2c3236c3/Copy-of-Evening-Readings-3_LiatelaF2022-copy.jpeg" /> <img width="922" height="1188" width_o="922" height_o="1188" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d66094231b997003fc4f630759cb0cfc10b2ead9eaf753f1bd36dfb16f9e8b87/Screen-Shot-2022-12-13-at-10.05.56-PM.png" data-mid="237265861" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/922/i/d66094231b997003fc4f630759cb0cfc10b2ead9eaf753f1bd36dfb16f9e8b87/Screen-Shot-2022-12-13-at-10.05.56-PM.png" /> https://jessefirestone.com/Dancing-on-Axes-and-Spears Wed, 20 Aug 2025 23:01:17 +0000 Jesse Firestone https://jessefirestone.com/Dancing-on-Axes-and-Spears 5. Dancing on Axes and Spears <img width="2000" height="1769" width_o="2000" height_o="1769" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c8ae17c67373066086a0411be60e70d0318ced6aa28cafe91e8f75ef68e9cc69/Installation-Image-19_GarciaS2023-1.jpg" data-mid="237266179" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c8ae17c67373066086a0411be60e70d0318ced6aa28cafe91e8f75ef68e9cc69/Installation-Image-19_GarciaS2023-1.jpg" /> Dancing on Axes and SpearsAn interactive martial arts gym designed to process grief through anticolonial resistance is at the center of this exhibition, exploring loss, memory, ancestry, and resiliance.&nbsp; Featuring Caroline GarciaCurated by Jesse Bandler FirestoneMontclair State University Gallery, January 31 – April 21, 2023 Highlighted in Asian Journal News Caroline Garcia’s&nbsp;&nbsp;featuring an interactive martial arts gym, virtual and augmented reality artworks, and various forms of choreography.&nbsp; <img width="850" height="478" width_o="850" height_o="478" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fed8a183942649bf26312bfec892b09cf09ab25102cbcf8ce14c8cdae483d3f5/Tropical-Dissent_1.jpg" data-mid="237266820" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/850/i/fed8a183942649bf26312bfec892b09cf09ab25102cbcf8ce14c8cdae483d3f5/Tropical-Dissent_1.jpg" /> Garcia’s works explore her Filipino identity, assimilation, cultural memory, and Indigeneity through diasporic and feminist perspectives. Employing video, performance, sculpture, and installation, Garcia addresses a central theme of &nbsp;“alterity” – an anthropological term meaning "otherness” – to mark her position in the diaspora where distance, language barriers, and colonization fracture traditional knowledge. <img width="850" height="478" width_o="850" height_o="478" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/afb4bcc2e44c52b17c0280e804fe6da9a3f4eb395c6943a5c6e9c3ee5d752078/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_4.jpg" data-mid="237266177" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/850/i/afb4bcc2e44c52b17c0280e804fe6da9a3f4eb395c6943a5c6e9c3ee5d752078/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_4.jpg" /> In Garcia’s single-channel digital video, Queen of the Carabao, 2018, the artist rides a water buffalo species native to the Philippines through her father’s ancestral farmlands and taps into traditional ways of life that she encountered during her visits to the Philippines as a child. Further expanding upon ideas of melancholia in relation to homeland and family, Garcia mourns her mother’s death from cancer in the VR artwork&nbsp;Choose Your Fighter, 2020. Surrounded by floating screens featuring women of color offering advice and wisdom and armed with an Indigenous Filipino blowpipe known as a&nbsp;sumpit,&nbsp;Garcia channels Indigenous forms of resistance and resilience as a way to process her grief. <img width="850" height="478" width_o="850" height_o="478" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/461be23b531c6158efe07437f08bf6c76315278f9dab187e2672f98e814a747f/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_6.jpg" data-mid="237266466" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/850/i/461be23b531c6158efe07437f08bf6c76315278f9dab187e2672f98e814a747f/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_6.jpg" /> Garcia also pairs these aspects of loss and longing with her experiences living in the United States and growing up in Australia. In a newly commissioned installation, Garcia has designed a training facility focused on the needs of AAPI (and BIPOC) women, girls, and gender-nonconforming femmes to examine violence as a tool for self-preservation. The Gallery will be equipped with punching bags, plants used to make poison, and training armaments. Visitors are invited to interact with various components of the installation through written prompts outlined by Garcia and find their own relationship to violence within a spectrum of offense and defense. <img width="850" height="478" width_o="850" height_o="478" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ec263d1efbf915bbbe974673b284506edd804f9f69a8f5a924f30cdca259e985/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_5-1.jpg" data-mid="237266178" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/850/i/ec263d1efbf915bbbe974673b284506edd804f9f69a8f5a924f30cdca259e985/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_5-1.jpg" /> The works featured in the exhibition are emblematic of the ways Garcia resists assimilation tactics within colonized land through unique survival strategies informed by elements of Indigenous Filipino culture and traditions, including martial arts and spirituality, technology, and community collaborations. Garcia’s exhibition at Montclair State University Galleries builds upon these themes and their relationships to larger systems within immigration, selfhood, and safety. <img width="850" height="478" width_o="850" height_o="478" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dd3747bb27eb2e3dbc477660b8d2e9dee127762e864f728389133e88b1752ab1/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_1.jpg" data-mid="237266176" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/850/i/dd3747bb27eb2e3dbc477660b8d2e9dee127762e864f728389133e88b1752ab1/Dancing-on-Axes---Spears_1.jpg" />