“Softer, Softest: Parts I, II, & III” Exhibition

AC Institute

This event has ended.

“I tell you everything

And I hope that you won’t tell on me.”

-Courtney Love

AC Institute presents Softer, Softest: Parts I, II, & III. For this series of shows, three artists consider the evolving nature of intimacy and exchange. Over the course of the exhibition, Monika Uchiyama, Peter Fankhauser, and Julian Chams will take turns transforming the gallery into solo-project spaces for two week periods. All three artists are invited to incorporate or reference each other’s work in their individual projects. Each of these will be punctuated by an opening reception and frame the following project until the exhibition closes. By entering into an exchange that strategically codifies what is too personal, too soft, or too queer, these three artists reposition the notion of vulnerability in closer proximity to control.

Peter Fankhauser: Opening Tuesday, September 11th 6:00-8:00 pm

Peter Fankhauser is an artist and educator who has held posts at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel in Los Angeles, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, and The City University of New York, where he also received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Practice. Narrative’s mutation across different media platforms has become a recurring theme in his work and a primary preoccupation. He has exhibited at independent and alternative spaces nationally and abroad including Judson Memorial Church (New York City), Death By Audio (Brooklyn), Silent Barn (Brooklyn), AC Institute (New York City), and the Meltdown Festival (London).

Julian Chams: Opening Friday, September 28th, 6:00-8:00 pm

Julian Chams is a visual from Colombia based in Brooklyn. Working in the space between the personal and the systematic, he creates assemblages of imagery that include both natural and manmade elements. Chams has had solo exhibitions at Wave Hill, Bronx; Splatterpool, Brooklyn; ARS Antiqua Galería, Barranquilla, Colombia; and Parallel Gallery, Kansas City, MO. His work has been featured in group shows at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx; XV Salón Regional de Artistas, Zona Caribe, Cartagena, Colombia; 50/50, Kansas City, MO; and the Consulate or Colombia in New York. In 2015 he was a Van Lier Visual Arts Fellow at Wave Hill in the Bronx. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Monika Uchiyama: Opening Friday, October 12th, 6:00-8:00 pm

Monika Uchiyama is an artist working primarily in video. She is interested in personal narratives and investigating the ways in which coping strategies linked to physical, social, and generational trauma reveal themselves through storytelling. She received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA from CUNY-City College, and attended the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art.