Artists Space

LIFE—a group show
Curated by Arnold J. Kemp

May 29 – August 9, 2025

Art, given the right circumstances, could get very small, hermetic and quiet—or big and messy. It could look like, to quote the painter and poet Etel Adnan, "the big mess of having a life."
— Arnold J. Kemp

Artists Space is pleased to announce LIFE—a group show, curated by Chicago-based artist and educator Arnold J. Kemp. In the words of its curator, this exhibition “is an armature that supports the continuation of a conversation that I was having with the artist Pope.L (1955 - 2023) for four years before his untimely passing.” Spanning the entire ground floor, LIFE—a group show features a dynamic array of forms—paintings, sculptures, objects, architectural interventions, videos, live performances, and newly commissioned poetry, that express the joyful, mundane, and atrociously unstable textures of sheer existence.

Participating artists include: Lindsay Adams, Zarouhie Abdalian, Israel Aten, Nick Bastis, Nayland Blake, Gregg Bordowitz, Carolyn Castaño, Patty Chang, Mike Cloud, D’Talentz (Nikita Gale, Aryel René Jackson, Tomashi Jackson, Ashley Teamer), Christopher Garrett, Renee Gladman, Robert Glück, Lydia Grey, Léonie Guyer, David Hammons, Geoffrey Hendricks, Xylor Jane, Margaret L. Kemp, Kristan Kennedy, Jinn Bronwen Lee, Eric N. Mack, Devin T. Mays, Malcolm Peacock, Pope.L, Nick Raffel, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Mindy Rose Schwartz, Cauleen Smith, Cameron Spratley, Catherine Sullivan (with George Lewis and Sean Griffin), Collection of Sur Rodney (Sur), Mami Takahashi, Christine Tien Wang, Fred Wilson, and poets David Buuck, Tonya Foster, Erica Hunt, and John Keene.

Gregg Bordowitz will present a performance on Thursday, June 5th at 7pm.

A large white MDF board rests against a gray wall. A series of metal sardine cans are placed across the MDF board in a loose grid.
William Pope.L, Maybe, 2009-2010. MDF board, sardine cans, plastic bag, cardboard box, nails, electrical extension cord, paint, graphite. 96 x 96 x 18 inches. [A large white MDF board rests against a gray wall. A series of metal sardine cans are placed across the MDF board in a loose grid.]

Renowned for work that upended conventions around race, language, masculinity, and citizenship, Pope.L’s practice was both radical and intimate—qualities that resonate throughout this exhibition. While it is not a memorial, the presentation stems from what Kemp describes as “an engagement against the amnesia that surfaces after a loved one passes.” Rather than closing a chapter, the show extends the vitality of an ongoing dialogue, by gathering emerging and established artists, writers, and performers who join Pope.L and Kemp in confronting the complexity, absurdity, and materiality of being alive.

LIFE—a group show is Kemp’s first curatorial project in two decades. Emerging in the early 1990s, his speculative, conceptually rich practice has been matched by astute and visionary curatorial work, a pursuit he began in 1993 when he was Associate Curator at the Yerba Buena Art Center in San Francisco. Through the intertwined pathways of his career, Kemp has held a sustained interrogation of themes around identity, stereotypes, and notions of “sameness.” A significant figure in conceptual and performance art, his approach to curation mirrors his broader artistic practice: intuitive, interdisciplinary, and deeply rooted in summoning Black experience without solidifying it into a stable identity. Reflecting on his past curatorial work with figures like Mark Dion, Laylah Ali, Tracey Moffatt, Viola Frey, and in the case of musician duo Matmos, Kemp writes: “in that exhibition, life and the real world met art in a way that encapsulated what I wanted to most do as a curator, which was to get out of the way of what art and artists can do and to simply allow art to happen, just like a UFO sighting, a cloud or a sudden rainstorm.”

At its heart, LIFE—a group show offers the exhibition itself as a kind of living structure—a densely networked constellation for holding feeling, contradiction, and dialogue. Kemp’s acute vision brings together a multivocal, intergenerational gathering of artists who, each in their own way, respond to the dissonance and intensity of being here—together, now.

A series of candles, each made of layers of red, white, and blue wax, are placed on an aluminum shelf. From the front, the shape of the candles spell out "LOVE."
Nayland Blake, Rafts (detail), 2019. Wax and aluminum. 3 aluminum shelves, each: 8 x 20 x 60 inches. 60 wax candles, each: 7 1/2 x 7 x 1 7/8 inches. ©Nayland Blake, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. [A series of candles, each made of layers of red, white, and blue wax, are placed on an aluminum shelf. From the front, the shape of the candles spell out "LOVE."]

June 5, 2025

Gregg Bordowitz:
One Night Only
Lecture
7pm

Arnold J. Kemp (b. 1968) is a visual artist, writer, and educator who previously was an associate curator at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from 1993 – 2003. During his curatorial tenure Kemp created opportunities for solo shows for influential artists such as Ellen Gallagher, Tracey Moffat, Fred Wilson and Mark Dion. He also worked with artists such as David Hammons, Octavia Butler, Sun Ra Research, Kerry James Marshall, Bruce Conner, John Baldessari and others in accomplished group exhibitions. As an artist Kemp engages in a multidisciplinary practice that extends beyond the formal gallery system by taking the form of talks, performances, limited-edition artist’s books, and collaborations. In the same spirit Kemp creates art works in various formats, for example, writing, painting, performance, video and sculpture. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Portland Art Museum, the Schneider Museum of Art, the Tacoma Art Museum, The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, the Hammer Art Museum, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar and The Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection. Recent exhibitions include solo presentations at the Neubauer Collegium, University of Chicago; M. LeBlanc, Chicago; Martos Gallery, New York; JOAN, Los Angeles; Biquini Wax, Mexico City, Mexico; and Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME.

Exhibition support for LIFE—a group show is provided by The Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, and Sarah Miller Meigs. Support is provided by Bernard I. Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi. In kind support is provided by Marc LeBlanc.

Support for Artists Space exhibitions and programs is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, The Keith Haring Foundation, I.A. O'Shaughnessy Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Lotos Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Foundation, and the Friends of Artists Space.