GROUP EXHIBITION

Voices of BIPOC artists and artists identifying as women or LGBTQ+ have been systematically quieted through their exclusion from nearly every level of the contemporary art field, particularly in the United States. Kavi Gupta’s mission is to amplify the voices of diverse and underrepresented artists to expand the canon of art history. Though their approaches are varied and idiosyncratic, the artists spotlighted in Abstraction and Social Critique are connected in the sense that their practices allow for a fully actualized conception of abstraction.

Some works, like those of Angel Otero, Abigail DeVille, and Richard Hunt, convey social critique through their methods and materials. Others, like those of Raymond Saunders, Cameron Welch, Miya Ando, Modou Dieng, Jamaal Peterman, and Rewind Collective, introduce personal and social narratives, though in abstracted terms. Paintings by Jack Whitten, James Little, Al Loving, Brooklin Soumahoro, and Clare Rojas can be read in purely formal terms—the combination of the artist’s lived experience and their intentions infuses the works with political relevance.

Within the exhibition, we see artists engaged in an effort to subvert systems of aesthetic oppression and control that attempt to define and thus limit what abstract art is and can be. Their presence here testifies to the changing needs of the contemporary art field, and broadens participation in the ongoing debate about the scope and influence of abstract art.