Hard Measure: Pooneh Maghazehe + Kate Steciw
press release
May 13th – June 18th
Opening reception Saturday, May 13th, 6-8 pm
Curated by Leonora Loeb
Text by Alex Feim
Underdonk is pleased to present Hard Measure, a two-person exhibition of work by Kate Steciw and Pooneh Maghazehe.
The exhibition includes canvas collages mounted on board by Steciw, and a single site-responsive sculptural work by Maghazehe.
Steciw and Maghazehe mine everyday life and imagery to create works that recontextualize their source material in a manner that is unapologetic about taking up space. Images and objects often remain at actual size yet are subsumed into compositions that defamiliarize them into fragmented forms, while retaining echoes of their origin points. They embrace the notion of jagged edges, and how existing materials might take on new physical and sculptural form.
Pooneh Maghazehe makes objects, prints, photos, and sometimes performs. Using materials often for their symbolic qualities, her approach to form maps the messy links between encryption and erasure. The resulting works reveal an intuitive material recording-keeping that mutually empowers an original and the pulpy residue of its manipulation.
Kate Steciw makes work that addresses the way in which contemporary culture is defined by image proliferation and embraces the potential of image manipulation technology as a creative tool. Drawing from an extensive archive of personal and found imagery, she assembles compositions that are distinctively image-based but destabilize fixed narrative and context.
Pooneh Maghazehe Holds an MFA from Columbia University. Recent solo exhibitions include Half-Life at KinoSaito Art Center in Verplanck, NY and 2for1 at Kathryn Brennan Gallery in New York, NY. Her work has been exhibited internationally and reviewed in Artforum, BmoreArt, Contemporary Practices, & Magazine 1. Maghazehe is based in Brooklyn, NY.
Kate Steciw holds a BA from Smith College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Steciw has exhibited extensively in New York in group exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, Hauser & Wirth, Johannes Vogt Gallery, and Eyebeam. She has had solo exhibitions at Higher Pictures Gallery (New York), Christophe Gaillard Gallery (Paris), Brand New Gallery (Milan), Neumeister Bar-Am (Berlin), Annarumma Gallery (Naples), and Levy Delval (Brussels). Her work has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, and Interview magazine. Steciw lives and works in upstate New York.
Leonora Loeb holds a BA in Fine Art from Pitzer College, CA, and an MFA in NYC from the School of Visual Arts in 2010. Working with sculpture, installation, and video, Loeb’s work has most recently been shown at spaces such as Ortega y Gasset Projects, Deanna Evans, and Tappeto Volante. Her work has been shown by curators and artists such as Augusto Arbizo, Dan Cameron, Jessica Cannon, Ruth Maleczech, and Kate Mothes; and has been written about in publications and blogs such as Art Maze Magazine and Two Coats of Paint. Loeb has been a curatorial member of the artist-run gallery, Underdonk in Bushwick, Brooklyn since 2019.
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