Proenza Schouler
The Storm Collection
Introducing our new collection of Storm shoes. Bold lines, graphic shapes, and made from luxe calf leather with a durable rubberized sole.
Akila Berjaoui, The last days of Summer
Sex Ecologies
Sex Ecologies
Edited by Stefanie Hessler
Sex Ecologies explores pleasure, affect, and the powers of the erotic in the human and more-than-human worlds. Arguing for the positive and constructive role of sex in ecology and art practice, these texts and artistic research projects attempt nothing short of reclaiming the sexual from Western erotophobia and heteronormative narratives of nature and reproduction. The artists and writers set out to examine queer ecology through the lens of environmental humanities, investigating the fluid boundaries between bodies (both human and nonhuman), between binary conceptions of nature as separate from culture, and between disciplines.
In newly commissioned texts from such writers as Mel Y. Chen and Jack Halberstam and a selection of influential essays—including an annotated version of Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”—as well as images and sketches from works in progress by a diverse group of artists, Sex Ecologies combines insights from the fields of art, environmental humanities, ecofeminism, gender studies, science, technology, political science, and indigenous studies.
Sex Ecologies, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name at Kunsthall Trondheim, emerges from an arts-driven research project collaboratively developed between the art center and the Seed Box environmental humanities collaboratory. Conceived not as a result but as a seed arising from this transdisciplinary fertilization, the volume presents a case for the role of sex in environmental and social justice.
Contributors
Katja Aglert, Tarsh Bates, adrienne maree brown, Mel Y. Chen, Pauline Doutreluingne, Léuli Eshrāghi, Jes Fan, Ibrahim Fazlic, Jack Halberstam, niilas helander, Stefanie Hessler, Jenny Hval, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Jessie Kleemann, Audre Lorde, Nina Lykke, Montserrat Madariaga-Caro, Camila Marambio, Astrida Neimanis, Pedro Neves Marques, Okwui Okpokwasili, Marie Helene Pereira, Margrethe Pettersen, Laure Prouvost, Filipa Ramos, Catriona Sandilands, Sami Schalk, Serubiri Moses, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, Kim TallBear, Anna Tje, Alberta Whittle, Victoria Wibeck, Elvia Wilk
Stefanie Hessler is Director of Kunsthall Trondheim in Norway and editor and curator of the exhibition Sex Ecologies, together with Katja Aglert, artist and Professor of Art in the Gender Studies Department at Linköping University and Artistic Leader of the Seed Box in Sweden; the team of Kunsthall Trondheim (Prerna Bishnoi, Carl Martin Faurby, Katrine Elise Pedersen, and Kaja Waagen); and RAW Material Company in Senegal. Hessler curated the 17th MOMENTA Biennale in Montreal, 2021, and is the editor of Tidalectics and Prospecting Oceans, both published by the MIT Press.
Copublished with Kunsthall Trondheim (Norway) and the Seed Box (Sweden)
The book is made possible through generous support from The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) and the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas) through The Seed Box program.
Hannah Levy, Surplus Tension, 2021
Hannah Levy, Surplus Tension, 2021
Photo Michael Tropea
Model Jenna Lyle
Hannah Levy
Surplus Tension
September 30, 2021–January 29, 2022
The Arts Club of Chicago
With work that has caused reviewers to “shudder,” Hannah Levy comes to Chicago to discuss her current exhibition Surplus Tension with Executive Director and Chief Curator Janine Mileaf. Exquisite and intricately crafted, yet edgy and transgressive, Levy’s sculpture exists between design and desire. In person attendees of the conversation will receive gratis copies of the newly available exhibition catalogue. If you are unable to attend in person there is a remote viewing option. We hope to see you there!
About the artist
Sculptor Hannah Levy breaks apart and reconfigures often overlooked items to create subtly anthropomorphic combines that suggest the familiar detritus of the industrialized world. She uses the term “design purgatory” to describe the banal objects she repurposes, which include such trade materials as medical devices, pool handrails, and napkin dispensers. Most often rendered in polished steel and vinyl, the works seek to balance the elements of abstract sculpture and associative assemblage. In their combination of soft materials and hard metal, her untitled sculptures speak in the subtle language of medical and commercial design, finding metaphor for the human body in the machinery that mediates it.
Untitled Selfie #200
Untitled Selfie #200
Sano Turdiev
Untitled Selfie #199
Untitled Selfie #199