les vases communicants, November 11 – December 30, 2017
Shulamit Nazarian is pleased to present Los Angeles-based artist Cammie Staros’ first exhibition with the gallery, les vases communicants. The exhibition’s title references surrealist André Breton’s 1932 essay by the same name, which in turn borrows it from the scientific principle of “communicating vessels.” Looking specifically to images and artifacts from the Greco-Roman period that aestheticizes eroticism, violence, and victory, the artist’s hand-built vessels marry ancient ceramic techniques with modern industrial materials. The resulting sculptures are rooted in history, yet disarmingly present.
Presented alongside Staros’ sculptures is an artist-curated selection of works by Whitney Hubbs, David Korty, Matt Lipps, Fay Ray, and Sara VanDerBeek. Referencing a museological strategy of informing viewers about the practice of the artist through the context of her contemporaries, Staros has selected specific works that consider the representation of desire, violence, gender codes, and institutional tropes of display, all embedded in the materials and images of antiquity.
