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Miller ICA
at Carnegie Mellon University
Purnell Center for the Arts
5000 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

(412) 268-3618 miller-ica@andrew.cmu.edu

Gallery Hours
We are currently closed to the public

Free + Open to the Public

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Miller
ICA
Miller
Institute For
Contemporary Art
Miller Institute For Contemporary Art
Exhibition

This Skin of Ours

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We sense the world through this skin of ours. It is the surface that brokers our relationship to external forces and translates them as pain or pleasure.

Duration
October 12, 2019 - November 17, 2019
Curator

Liz Park

Artists
Kader Attia, Matty Davis & Ben Gould, Victoria Fu & Matt Rich, Byron Kim, Kiki Kogelnik, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Wilmer Wilson IV
Events

Reception: This Skin of Ours + Intersections

Byron Kim & Carl Phillips in Conversation - In Simmons Auditorium Tepper Building, CMU

Bearance: a performance by Matty Davis & Ben Gould at Braddock Carnegie Library

Related Publication

View information This Skin Of Ours Catalogue. Download Catalogue.

We sense the world through this skin of ours. It is the surface that brokers our relationship to external forces and translates them as pain or pleasure. This organ gives each of us an identifiable shape, on which accrues a lifetime of experiences. With its distinct tone and texture, the skin is perhaps where we most frequently deposit ideas of the self and the other. We test the limits of our physical selves through contact—violence and intimacy both necessitate that our skins touch and communicate. If the skin is a site of injuries and insults that each body has had to bear, it is also a site of potential repair. A scar suggests both past violence and the body’s capacity to enclose the lips of a wound.

The skin is also a site of a formal investigation. It is a medium—an elastic and responsive layer—through which the artists grouped here explore pain and hurt, redemptive possibilities of healing, and the meeting of private and public lives. Imagine that the works in the exhibition comprise a collective sensing organ, pulsing with colors and texture. Imagine also this organ’s capacity to feel and empathize the pain of others as well as the pleasure from tender touch. This is a proposal to collectively feel our way through this world where we will inevitably emerge scarred, but in the shared experiences that allow for a deeper understanding of the other.

Image

Byron Kim, Evidence of a Struggle, 2016. Glue, oil and pigment on canvas, 65 x 53 inches, Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery.

About the Curator
Liz Park is Curator of Exhibitions at UB Art Galleries in Buffalo, New York. She was most recently the associate curator of the 2018 Carnegie International at Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. She has curated exhibitions at a wide range of institutions including the Western Front in Vancouver, the Kitchen in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and Seoul Art Space_Geumcheon. Her writing has been published by Afterall Online, Afterimage, ArtAsiaPacific, Performa Magazine, Fillip, Yishu: A Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Pluto Press, and Ryerson University Press, among others. She was a Helena Rubinstein Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2011-2012 and Whitney-Lauder Curatorial Fellow at ICA Philadelphia in 2013-2015.

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Kiki Kogelnik, Womans Lib, 1971 Silkscreen and color pencil on paper 76.2 x 56.2 cm (30 x 22 1/8 in.) © 1971 Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved. Image courtesy Kiki Kogelnik Foundation.

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Matty Davis and Ben Gould, A Vessel for Carriage, The Chicago River, 2018 Photo by David Kasnic. Image courtesy of the artists.

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This Skin of Ours. Installation view at Miller ICA. Photo: Tom Little.

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This Skin of Ours. Installation view at Miller ICA. Photo: Tom Little.

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This Skin of Ours. Installation view at Miller ICA. Photo: Tom Little.

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This Skin of Ours. Installation view at Miller ICA. Photo: Tom Little.

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This Skin of Ours. Installation view at Miller ICA. Photo: Tom Little.

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This Skin of Ours. Installation view at Miller ICA. Photo: Tom Little.

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Bearance:aperformanceby Matty Davis & Ben Gould at Braddock Carnegie Library as part ofThis Skin of Oursexhibit curated by Liz Park at Miller ICA. Photo by Ryan Michael White.

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Bearance:aperformanceby Matty Davis & Ben Gould at Braddock Carnegie Library as part ofThis Skin of Oursexhibit curated by Liz Park at Miller ICA. Photo by Ryan Michael White.

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Bearance:aperformanceby Matty Davis & Ben Gould at Braddock Carnegie Library as part ofThis Skin of Oursexhibit curated by Liz Park at Miller ICA. Photo by Ryan Michael White.

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Bearance:aperformanceby Matty Davis & Ben Gould at Braddock Carnegie Library as part ofThis Skin of Oursexhibit curated by Liz Park at Miller ICA. Photo by Ryan Michael White.

Miller ICA
at Carnegie Mellon University
Purnell Center for the Arts
5000 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

(412) 268-3618 miller-ica@andrew.cmu.edu

Gallery Hours
We are currently closed to the public

Free + Open to the Public

Terms & Conditions, Colophon
Sign up to receive news updates.