The hemp plants produce CBD, which Kuriki-Olivo used during her recovery from surgery to extract a brain tumour when she was just 20. The artist lolls on her bed in an open robe while texting art dealers and friends, controlling a device that can turn the glass wall opaque for a few minutes of privacy. For the first, at Balice Hertling in Paris, the gallery was equipped with a fog machine, making viewers work to discern the physical changes to her body over the run of an exhibition.Īt the New Museum, exposure is key. In a subsequent series of performances that took place in galleries and museums over the course of a year, she stood for hours, naked. When she began taking hormones, Kuriki-Olivo threw off the mask and went for total exposure. (Puppies Puppies began as a Facebook handle). This was taken from a series of “sleeping performances” where the artist only appeared in public as a cartoon character, costumed to hide any identifying physical attributes such as age, gender, or ethnicity. Instead, the artist messed with my mind without moving a muscle. I waited-for the prosthetic hands to move, for the eyes to open, for a sound. After walking through tautological displays of blue, yellow and green household objects, I was left alone with the artist in a bedroom so dark that it took time to make out the prone figure dressed in a Voldemort mask and costume. This was in 2017, pre-transition, when the artist was married and living in Los Angeles. Prior to this encounter, the most bizarre studio visit of my life-and the most memorable-was with none other than Puppies Puppies, who slept through it. Is this to be a cage match or a love fest? Is the visitor an engaged viewer or an invasive force? Is the artist selling something or defending her territory? All about exposure Several threats to complacency await, and contradictory feelings abound. But what is green if not a blend of two colours: yellow and blue? Apt for a biracial, bipolar, trans artist straddling the art world and an unsympathetic or indifferent world outside her community.Īll studio visits are a minefield. The name, she says, is popular in Puerto Rico, where her recently deceased father was born. So fun! So metaphoric, like every part of this show.įor example, Kuriki-Olivo did not choose to call herself Jade on a whim. The colour narrative continues in the lobby at what used to be a coffee bar now, it’s a survivalist’s pantry stocked with tinned food, soft drinks and snacks-all chosen for their green packaging. Everything in it is a shade of green: bed covers, clothing, table, marshmallow couch, globe chandeliers, throw rugs, an étagère and the entire back wall of the set. Photo: Dario Lasagniīut the space is also a shrine to the colour green. It is the monochromatic centrepiece of an installation that takes the artist’s body, life and activism within the trans community as its subject.Įxhibition view of Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo): Nothing New, 2023, at the New Museum, New YorkĬourtesy of New Museum. Rice-paper screens separate a serene rock garden and a hothouse for hemp plants from a replica of Kuriki-Olivo’s small, Lower East Side apartment. Blocking your way is a pink torii gate, the traditional entrance to Shinto temples in Japan, where the artist’s mother was born. Think of it as an eyes-only studio visit from which you are otherwise locked out. Nothing New is Kuriki-Olivo’s first solo exhibition in New York. That is because art never rests-and, in this case, the artist is the art. Whether in residence or in her apartment after museum hours, a webcam will spy on the artist, even when she sleeps. Until 14 January, the trans performance and installation artist is living and working behind a protective wall of glass in the museum’s lobby. Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) is at home in New York’s New Museum.
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