Fri 6/27 @ 6PM
MoCa, Cleveland’s contemporary art space in University Circle, is opening a diverse swath of new shows this Friday, with a free, public reception.
There’s Mexico City-based Clotilde Jiménez’s Shapeshifter, which, unsurprisingly given its name, explores transformation. It highlights, he says, “the societal limitations imposed on the body through race, gender, and sexuality, challenging and reshaping these constructs with subtlety and a playful sense of humor,” and draws on painting, collage, sculpture and ceramics, among other media. The show spans his entire career including his student work from the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Clevelander Erykah Townsend, another CIA alum (’20), offers “Happy” Holidays, her first solo museum show. In it the multimedia artist looks at how consumerism shapes Christmas, creating financial stress with its commercial expectations, and more broadly, how this expectation of endless spending shapes our lives. The project is a result of her 2022 residency at moCa.
Kelli Connell started her study Double Life about our relationship with ourselves in 2002. What appears to be a depiction of a relationship between two women reveals a single woman as both.
Beverly Semmes’ The Dresses features four huge dresses made from velvet and organza to “evoke intimacy and grandeur.” “At once whimsical and unsettling, the dresses stand in for absent bodies, inviting reflection on the people who might inhabit them and traditional ideals of femininity, identity, and beauty,” we’re told.
And finally, Maggie Menghan Chen’s Body Building Exercise responds to her depression and sedentary life during COVID, trying to excavate a message of optimism. The video features Chen and Vivian Yao dancing to a soundtrack created by Shanghai-based producer felicita. It incorporates elements for hip hop, Zumba, vogue, metal and crump and museum visitors are invited to dance along to the video.
Get more info here.