Galerie Pepe
G A L E R I E P E P E OPEN WED-FRI 12pm-6pm, SAT 11am-3pm AND BY APPOINTMENT AT MAIL@GALERIEPEPE.COM
PAST
ECOS ESTRIDENTES
ALFRED BRIQUET
LOUIS EISNER
NOCTURNOS
ELI KESZLER
GARY INDIANA
NATE BOYCE
ECHOES OF MISHIMA
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Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Ecos Estridentes an exhibition of works by Germán Cueto (1893 - 1975), Anna Khachiyan (b. 1985) and Mathieu Malouf (b. 1984).
February 4th, 2024 - April 5th, 2025
Strident Echoes brings together selections from the estate of Germán Cueto with new works by Anna Khachiyan and Mathieu Malouf in a dynamic confrontation of primitivism and fauvism, grounded in the revolutionary fervor of Stridentism.
Emerging in 1920s Mexico, Stridentism (Estridentismo) was a radical avant-garde movement that fused elements of Futurism, Dada, and Cubism with a uniquely Mexican sensibility, embracing mechanical progress, urban chaos, and the raw energy of popular culture. Cueto, a central figure in the movement, translated these ideas into sculptural forms that oscillate between the geometric and the organic, channeling pre-Columbian and African influences while celebrating modernist fragmentation.
His legacy is echoed in this exhibition through Malouf’s penguin paintings—mutated bodies caught in a state of excess, simultaneously primitive and hypermodern. The latest in a series begun in 2023, these works mark a new low for the artist, both conceptually and technically.
Meanwhile, Khachiyan’s feminist approach bypasses the mythologies of the avant-garde and taps into the emotionalism and romance that often underpin artistic rebellion. In this interplay, the latent homoerotic themes of the gallery are channeled through the lens of motherhood in delicately rendered nudes and textual images inspired by Alcoholics Anonymous.
In the midst of all this—color runs wild, forms dissolve, and the boundaries between intellect and impulse, past and future, collapse into a heady, feverish vision of art as both an ecstatic release and a site of critique. Ecos Estridentes reanimates the disruptive energy of modernism, questioning whether its radical gestures still hold power or if they, too, have succumbed to the intoxication of their own myth.
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Galerie Pepe is pleased to present an exhibition of photographic works by photographer Alfred Briquet (b. 1833, Paris, FR). December 11th, 2024 - January 25th, 2025
"I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path leading up the hill. It turned aside for the boulders, and also for an undersized railway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. One was off. The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal. I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, a stack of rusty rails. To the left a clump of trees made a thick shade, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way of anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on.”
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Alfred Briquet’s photographs of Mexico’s first railroad line, inaugurated in 1873, reflect a nineteenth-century artistic shift toward redefining man’s relationship with nature. Like French artists who, inspired by portable equipment, the expansion of the railway and the technical innovation of photography, explored rural landscapes with a renewed commitment to naturalism, Briquet documented the transformation of Mexico’s countryside with a modern lens. His images, steeped in the pictorial traditions of earlier masters like Jacob van Ruisdael and Rembrandt, juxtapose the raw beauty of untouched landscapes with the relentless advance of industrialization. These photographs also evoke the idea of the myth of progress, where the romantic ideals of modernization and connectivity obscure the human and environmental costs of such development. By capturing the railroad’s incursion into the natural world, Briquet’s work aligns with broader artistic efforts to question the implications of modernity, blending admiration for technological innovation with an awareness of its profound impact on traditional landscapes and ways of life.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Alfred Briquet’s photographs of Mexico’s first railroad line, inaugurated in 1873, reflect a nineteenth-century artistic shift toward redefining man’s relationship with nature. Like French artists who, inspired by portable equipment, the expansion of the railway and the technical innovation of photography, explored rural landscapes with a renewed commitment to naturalism, Briquet documented the transformation of Mexico’s countryside with a modern lens. His images, steeped in the pictorial traditions of earlier masters like Jacob van Ruisdael and Rembrandt, juxtapose the raw beauty of untouched landscapes with the relentless advance of industrialization. These photographs also evoke the idea of the myth of progress, where the romantic ideals of modernization and connectivity obscure the human and environmental costs of such development. By capturing the railroad’s incursion into the natural world, Briquet’s work aligns with broader artistic efforts to question the implications of modernity, blending admiration for technological innovation with an awareness of its profound impact on traditional landscapes and ways of life.
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Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Trees an exhibition of new works by artist Louis Eisner (b. 1988, Los Angeles, CA). September 19th - December 7th, 2024
A locus of artistic activity in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Forest of Fontainebleau--and in particular the small town of Barbizon that lay within it--was home and muse to dozens of plein-air painters. Comprising forty thousand acres, the forest was crisscrossed by footpaths and horse tracks and dotted with ancient oaks and anthropomorphic boulders christened with heroic and fanciful monikers. In 1849 a new railroad line brought the forest within easy reach of bourgeois Parisians seeking a natural setting for picnics, promenades, and artistic inspiration. At the same time Olmsted’s plan for New York City’s Central Park, a simulation of an ‘original’ forest, was being approved and would serve as a respite for a rapidly growing city.
In Trees Eisner plays with perspective, subtly adjusting the elements within his compositions to heighten the poetic tension between light and shadow with branches silhouetted against a luminous winter sky, recalling Alfred Robaut’s description of Corot’s work as a "spider’s web." Such sylvan motifs, seen in Eisner’s practice, invite viewers to engage with nature in a way that transcends simple representation. Much like the pre-Impressionist painters who found solace in the Forest of Fontainebleau, Eisner’s work also explores nature as both a refuge and a source of creative inspiration. His treatment of light and texture, reminiscent of Le Gray’s pioneering photography, focuses not on precise detail but on an emotive, sensuous rendering of the environment. Eisner’s paintings weave together the vegetation of the forest floor, the lichen-covered rocks, the gnarled oaks, light, and air into complex tapestries that blur the boundaries between solid form and empty space.
Wherever one casts an eye upon Eisner’s exhibition, space seems to extend in opposite directions never demanding focus. Furthermore, the large format paintings in the show are generally intended to be seen, as murals are, from a more distant vantage point than an easel painting would be seen; sharply indicated details get lost. Broad, open, suggestive brushwork is more convincing. The thick, irregular ridges of Eisner’s broken brushstrokes catch the light in the rooms where his paintings are displayed and thus contribute to the paintings' effects.
A locus of artistic activity in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Forest of Fontainebleau--and in particular the small town of Barbizon that lay within it--was home and muse to dozens of plein-air painters. Comprising forty thousand acres, the forest was crisscrossed by footpaths and horse tracks and dotted with ancient oaks and anthropomorphic boulders christened with heroic and fanciful monikers. In 1849 a new railroad line brought the forest within easy reach of bourgeois Parisians seeking a natural setting for picnics, promenades, and artistic inspiration. At the same time Olmsted’s plan for New York City’s Central Park, a simulation of an ‘original’ forest, was being approved and would serve as a respite for a rapidly growing city.
In Trees Eisner plays with perspective, subtly adjusting the elements within his compositions to heighten the poetic tension between light and shadow with branches silhouetted against a luminous winter sky, recalling Alfred Robaut’s description of Corot’s work as a "spider’s web." Such sylvan motifs, seen in Eisner’s practice, invite viewers to engage with nature in a way that transcends simple representation. Much like the pre-Impressionist painters who found solace in the Forest of Fontainebleau, Eisner’s work also explores nature as both a refuge and a source of creative inspiration. His treatment of light and texture, reminiscent of Le Gray’s pioneering photography, focuses not on precise detail but on an emotive, sensuous rendering of the environment. Eisner’s paintings weave together the vegetation of the forest floor, the lichen-covered rocks, the gnarled oaks, light, and air into complex tapestries that blur the boundaries between solid form and empty space.
Wherever one casts an eye upon Eisner’s exhibition, space seems to extend in opposite directions never demanding focus. Furthermore, the large format paintings in the show are generally intended to be seen, as murals are, from a more distant vantage point than an easel painting would be seen; sharply indicated details get lost. Broad, open, suggestive brushwork is more convincing. The thick, irregular ridges of Eisner’s broken brushstrokes catch the light in the rooms where his paintings are displayed and thus contribute to the paintings' effects.
Images
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Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Nocturnos an exhibition of works by artists Gerardo Murillo “Dr. Atl”, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Nahui Olin, Roberto Montenegro, Tina Modotti, Tufic Yazbek. A project by Rodrigo Ortiz Monasterio. June 20th - August 24th, 2024
Los Contemporáneos, an avant-garde Mexican literary and artistic group active in the 1920s and 1930s, sought to push the boundaries of Mexican art and literature by incorporating modern techniques and themes. The group included notable painters such as Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Roberto Montenegro, and Nahui Olin, as well as influential writers such as Xavier Villaurrutia, Salvador Novo, and Jorge Cuesta, among other important figures. A recurring motif in their work was the Nocturne, which served as a powerful symbol of introspection, mystery, and the subconscious. In the paintings of Rodríguez Lozano, Montenegro, and Olin, the nocturne provided a backdrop for exploring deep emotional states and existential themes. Similarly, in the poems of Villaurrutia, Ortiz de Montellano and Cuesta, the nocturne was a space for delving into the complexities of human experience, particularly around themes of solitude, love and despair.
Xavier Villaurrutia’s "Nocturnos" are perhaps the most notable examples of the use of the nocturne in poetry and in Los Contemporáneos' literary output. His poems are filled with images of night, shadows, and silence, exploring themes of mortality and love and are often dedicated to members of the group. Elías Nandino, Salvador Novo and Jorge Cuesta also employed the nocturne in their work, using the motif to express their own existential musings and emotional turmoil. Novo’s poetry often combined wit and melancholy, while Cuesta’s work delved into themes of intellectual and emotional conflict within. For these poets, the nocturne was not just a setting but a state of being, a way to explore not only the night but the darker aspects of the human psyche.
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano’s use of the nocturne is particularly notable for its haunting, dream-like quality. His works often depicted solitary figures or dark, desolate landscapes bathed in the eerie glow of moonlight, evoking a sense of melancholy and introspection. Montenegro’s paintings, while also embracing the nocturne, were characterized by their vibrant use of color and intricate patterns, which created a surreal, almost fantastical atmosphere. Nahui Olin’s paintings, meanwhile, combined sensuality with a deep sense of mystery, often featuring ethereal female figures in vibrant and expressive colors set against dark, moody backgrounds. These nocturnal scenes not only highlighted the artists' technical prowess, often self-taught, but also reflected their inner worlds against melancholic landscapes.
The influence of the French literary and artistic scene on Los Contemporáneos was profound. This fascination with French modernism and symbolism often led to their portrayal of being elitist, as they distanced themselves from the more politically charged, nationalist art movements in Mexico during this time. Their works often grappled with themes of impossible and tragic love, both within their art and in their personal lives. The relationships among the members of the group were marked by intense emotional and intellectual bonds, as well as by heartbreak, longing and suicide. This blend of personal and artistic passion imbued their work with a sense of foreboding, making Los Contemporáneos a unique and influential force in the landscape of Mexican modernism.
Los Contemporáneos, an avant-garde Mexican literary and artistic group active in the 1920s and 1930s, sought to push the boundaries of Mexican art and literature by incorporating modern techniques and themes. The group included notable painters such as Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Roberto Montenegro, and Nahui Olin, as well as influential writers such as Xavier Villaurrutia, Salvador Novo, and Jorge Cuesta, among other important figures. A recurring motif in their work was the Nocturne, which served as a powerful symbol of introspection, mystery, and the subconscious. In the paintings of Rodríguez Lozano, Montenegro, and Olin, the nocturne provided a backdrop for exploring deep emotional states and existential themes. Similarly, in the poems of Villaurrutia, Ortiz de Montellano and Cuesta, the nocturne was a space for delving into the complexities of human experience, particularly around themes of solitude, love and despair.
Xavier Villaurrutia’s "Nocturnos" are perhaps the most notable examples of the use of the nocturne in poetry and in Los Contemporáneos' literary output. His poems are filled with images of night, shadows, and silence, exploring themes of mortality and love and are often dedicated to members of the group. Elías Nandino, Salvador Novo and Jorge Cuesta also employed the nocturne in their work, using the motif to express their own existential musings and emotional turmoil. Novo’s poetry often combined wit and melancholy, while Cuesta’s work delved into themes of intellectual and emotional conflict within. For these poets, the nocturne was not just a setting but a state of being, a way to explore not only the night but the darker aspects of the human psyche.
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano’s use of the nocturne is particularly notable for its haunting, dream-like quality. His works often depicted solitary figures or dark, desolate landscapes bathed in the eerie glow of moonlight, evoking a sense of melancholy and introspection. Montenegro’s paintings, while also embracing the nocturne, were characterized by their vibrant use of color and intricate patterns, which created a surreal, almost fantastical atmosphere. Nahui Olin’s paintings, meanwhile, combined sensuality with a deep sense of mystery, often featuring ethereal female figures in vibrant and expressive colors set against dark, moody backgrounds. These nocturnal scenes not only highlighted the artists' technical prowess, often self-taught, but also reflected their inner worlds against melancholic landscapes.
The influence of the French literary and artistic scene on Los Contemporáneos was profound. This fascination with French modernism and symbolism often led to their portrayal of being elitist, as they distanced themselves from the more politically charged, nationalist art movements in Mexico during this time. Their works often grappled with themes of impossible and tragic love, both within their art and in their personal lives. The relationships among the members of the group were marked by intense emotional and intellectual bonds, as well as by heartbreak, longing and suicide. This blend of personal and artistic passion imbued their work with a sense of foreboding, making Los Contemporáneos a unique and influential force in the landscape of Mexican modernism.
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Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Echea an exhibition by artist, composer and percussionist Eli Keszler (b. Boston, MA). April 11th - June 8th, 2024
I’m a musician and composer by trade, but I’ve been feeling a little bored lately. So when Pepe proposed doing an exhibition of visual art at his gallery, I took the chance. The natural if predictable move for me was to “explore the link” between music and art.
On my daily trips across lower Manhattan from my apartment to the studio, I began looking for inspiration. It's always been “ground zero” down here for all sorts of new and interesting developments, for lack of a better phrase. These days, the first thing you notice is the migrants spilling into Tompkins Square Park from the nearby St. Brigid intake center. There was an earthquake in New York on Friday. And an eclipse on Monday. It’s exhilarating to think we’re living in “end times,” but most likely the show just goes on.
In Echea, the figures are conjoined yet disjointed. Men and women, young and old. Adults are children, and children are adults. It’s all the same. The barren and washed-out American landscapes speak for themselves. Child soldiers, broken homes, American flags, Bald Eagles, aging bodies on display, all sorts of unusual groupings and paranoid inner realities. I worked both slowly and quickly on these pieces, taking my time coming up with the initial “concepts” and then smearing and rubbing graphite and wax onto the image surfaces.
“Echea” comes from the Greek word for “sounding vase.” Traditionally, these ceramic vessels were used to amplify sound in temples and, later, churches. In antiquity, the vessels were designed to be proportional with Greek modes, acting as a kind of early “sound system.” In other words, each vessel corresponds sympathetically to a unique tone in the Greek scale.
Produced in collaboration with ceramicist and sound artist Reuben Son, the sculpture in the gallery is fitted with ceramic tongues and hidden speakers. The sounds they emit resonate throughout the space and harmonize with the surroundings. Quiet at first, distant, and a little uncanny, they lend an air of innocence to the work.
Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the relationship between the “generative” and the degenerate. “Ugly Beauty,” the title of one of my favorite Thelonious Monk songs, sums it up well. There’s a point where the two inevitably meet. To be a true environmentalist, you have to love garbage. I’m just trying to watch it burn in peace.
Eli Keszler
I’m a musician and composer by trade, but I’ve been feeling a little bored lately. So when Pepe proposed doing an exhibition of visual art at his gallery, I took the chance. The natural if predictable move for me was to “explore the link” between music and art.
On my daily trips across lower Manhattan from my apartment to the studio, I began looking for inspiration. It's always been “ground zero” down here for all sorts of new and interesting developments, for lack of a better phrase. These days, the first thing you notice is the migrants spilling into Tompkins Square Park from the nearby St. Brigid intake center. There was an earthquake in New York on Friday. And an eclipse on Monday. It’s exhilarating to think we’re living in “end times,” but most likely the show just goes on.
In Echea, the figures are conjoined yet disjointed. Men and women, young and old. Adults are children, and children are adults. It’s all the same. The barren and washed-out American landscapes speak for themselves. Child soldiers, broken homes, American flags, Bald Eagles, aging bodies on display, all sorts of unusual groupings and paranoid inner realities. I worked both slowly and quickly on these pieces, taking my time coming up with the initial “concepts” and then smearing and rubbing graphite and wax onto the image surfaces.
“Echea” comes from the Greek word for “sounding vase.” Traditionally, these ceramic vessels were used to amplify sound in temples and, later, churches. In antiquity, the vessels were designed to be proportional with Greek modes, acting as a kind of early “sound system.” In other words, each vessel corresponds sympathetically to a unique tone in the Greek scale.
Produced in collaboration with ceramicist and sound artist Reuben Son, the sculpture in the gallery is fitted with ceramic tongues and hidden speakers. The sounds they emit resonate throughout the space and harmonize with the surroundings. Quiet at first, distant, and a little uncanny, they lend an air of innocence to the work.
Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the relationship between the “generative” and the degenerate. “Ugly Beauty,” the title of one of my favorite Thelonious Monk songs, sums it up well. There’s a point where the two inevitably meet. To be a true environmentalist, you have to love garbage. I’m just trying to watch it burn in peace.
Eli Keszler
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Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Autofiction an exhibition by writer and artist Gary Indiana (b. 1950, Derry, NH). February 6th - March 23rd, 2024
Autofiction
Every picture tells a story. Every story has other stories lurking behind it, stories that are not being told. For example, why a picture was made, under what circumstances, for what purpose, if any, or, if you like, what the person who made the picture was thinking about when the picture was made.
In most instances I could tell you these things, but I’d rather not, and instead will say that this show is “about” words and images, words that contradict or collude with the images they collide with, in juxtaposition with wordless images that “speak for themselves,” if mostly in ambiguous fashion.
In some cases language nibbles at the edges of intelligibility before relapsing into silence, a silence I know well from many spells of becoming unable to write, and unable to make sense of a world that has become, throughout my lifetime, more and more insensibly garbled. Some of these pictures refer to phases of a political and literary education, virtually all of them experienced outside of school. Others rebut or mirror the confusions produced by the glut of meaningless, banal, and coercive pictures and verbiage the present era inflicts on everyone through mass media. And others still are just there for the simple pleasure of looking at something that can be understood in many different ways.
Gary Indiana
Autofiction
Every picture tells a story. Every story has other stories lurking behind it, stories that are not being told. For example, why a picture was made, under what circumstances, for what purpose, if any, or, if you like, what the person who made the picture was thinking about when the picture was made.
In most instances I could tell you these things, but I’d rather not, and instead will say that this show is “about” words and images, words that contradict or collude with the images they collide with, in juxtaposition with wordless images that “speak for themselves,” if mostly in ambiguous fashion.
In some cases language nibbles at the edges of intelligibility before relapsing into silence, a silence I know well from many spells of becoming unable to write, and unable to make sense of a world that has become, throughout my lifetime, more and more insensibly garbled. Some of these pictures refer to phases of a political and literary education, virtually all of them experienced outside of school. Others rebut or mirror the confusions produced by the glut of meaningless, banal, and coercive pictures and verbiage the present era inflicts on everyone through mass media. And others still are just there for the simple pleasure of looking at something that can be understood in many different ways.
Gary Indiana
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NATE BOYCE
A Light That Dies in My Mouth
Through January 20th, 2024
Galerie Pepe is pleased to present A Light That Dies in My Mouth an exhibition of new work by New York-based artist Nate Boyce (b. 1982, Kansas City, MO). November 16th, 2023 - January 20th, 2024
In the back of the gallery the animation, A Light That Dies in My Mouth, plays against a piece of scrim hanging from the ceiling. It’s a hand-drawn re-animation of a video of George Balanchine’s choreography for Anton Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments—in which a duet of dancers move erratically, supposedly in synch with the twelve-tone composition—while rotoscoped cartoon figures emerge at varying speeds. On the neighboring video projection, processed images of Gottfried von Bismarck are overlaid with hand-drawn passages from the Austrian poet Georg Trakl. His poems are a starting point at the front of the gallery as well, where engravings dissolve into abstract notation on top of a series of aluminum sculptures that are contoured as though they've been set to music. They are sculptures of compositions that were poems written for a dance.
Anton Webern spent decades deconstructing music theory before encountering the problem: with such a detached form of music, where do you begin? He based a series of compositions off the poems of Trakl, who had spent the final years of his life serving as a nurse for the Austro-Hungarian Empire during WWI, an experience that confirmed the civilizational decline that he had fantasized about his entire life. Trakl translated this decline with decadence, which Webern then filtered through the discipline of his music. Musicologists frequently say that you can see mountains in his scores. In 1914, Trakl died of a medical cocaine overdose, while Webern was killed by a nervous American soldier two weeks after the end of WWII.
Trakl’s poetry is so emo that it’s almost funny. His scenes are filled with orphans and death; Decaying in a bush of thorns. He was obsessed with humanity’s seemingly incurable madness, and the idea that it was a daemon that ran through history and people. Madness itself was a shared form. He saw it in poets such as Friedrich Hölderlin, who had an intense influence on Trakl’s poetry, and had spent half of his life living isolated in a tower due to insanity. But Hölderlin thought that our lives were too ridiculous to be purely tragic. He thought the comedic form was the most applicable to our experience. In 1803, three years before Hölderlin was interned in a sanitarium and subsequently released into the care of a carpenter in Tübingen, he published Remarks on Oedipus in which he viewed certain myths through a decidedly comic, not tragic, light. He wrote, “Thus, man forgets himself and God turns, but in a sacred way, like a traitor.” Patrick McGraw
In the back of the gallery the animation, A Light That Dies in My Mouth, plays against a piece of scrim hanging from the ceiling. It’s a hand-drawn re-animation of a video of George Balanchine’s choreography for Anton Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments—in which a duet of dancers move erratically, supposedly in synch with the twelve-tone composition—while rotoscoped cartoon figures emerge at varying speeds. On the neighboring video projection, processed images of Gottfried von Bismarck are overlaid with hand-drawn passages from the Austrian poet Georg Trakl. His poems are a starting point at the front of the gallery as well, where engravings dissolve into abstract notation on top of a series of aluminum sculptures that are contoured as though they've been set to music. They are sculptures of compositions that were poems written for a dance.
Anton Webern spent decades deconstructing music theory before encountering the problem: with such a detached form of music, where do you begin? He based a series of compositions off the poems of Trakl, who had spent the final years of his life serving as a nurse for the Austro-Hungarian Empire during WWI, an experience that confirmed the civilizational decline that he had fantasized about his entire life. Trakl translated this decline with decadence, which Webern then filtered through the discipline of his music. Musicologists frequently say that you can see mountains in his scores. In 1914, Trakl died of a medical cocaine overdose, while Webern was killed by a nervous American soldier two weeks after the end of WWII.
Trakl’s poetry is so emo that it’s almost funny. His scenes are filled with orphans and death; Decaying in a bush of thorns. He was obsessed with humanity’s seemingly incurable madness, and the idea that it was a daemon that ran through history and people. Madness itself was a shared form. He saw it in poets such as Friedrich Hölderlin, who had an intense influence on Trakl’s poetry, and had spent half of his life living isolated in a tower due to insanity. But Hölderlin thought that our lives were too ridiculous to be purely tragic. He thought the comedic form was the most applicable to our experience. In 1803, three years before Hölderlin was interned in a sanitarium and subsequently released into the care of a carpenter in Tübingen, he published Remarks on Oedipus in which he viewed certain myths through a decidedly comic, not tragic, light. He wrote, “Thus, man forgets himself and God turns, but in a sacred way, like a traitor.” Patrick McGraw
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ECHOES OF MISHIMA
Go Mishima
Sadao Hasegawa
Tamotsu Yato
Through November 4th, 2023
Through November 4th, 2023
G A L E R I E P E P E
Language fails. Deleuze says, summarizing Spinoza, “the only question that we don’t even know [savons] what a body is capable of, we prattle on about the soul and the mind and we don’t know what a body can do.” After an early life devoted to the word, Yukio Mishima turned to the body, to discover what a body was capable of, as an actor, as a body builder. An actor instrumentalizes the body, in service to language sometimes, but really gestures toward something more. A body builder counts - reps, sets, weights - to break the body in order to strengthen it, to gesture towards something more. The fetish, per Freud, emerges when a desiring subject fails to reconcile reproductive impulses, replacing the object of desire with a symbol. The fetish becomes not merely a substitute for the phallus, but something more. The “healthy” drive towards procreation, towards life, becomes an erotic impulse towards death. The image, the symbol, the gesture, the body, confront the limitations of language. The body, of course, also fails. The gesture remains. Violence, like eroticism, does not speak. When Mishima spoke to the soldiers at the military base before his ritual suicide, they couldn’t hear him.
“I cherished a romantic impulse toward death. . . . It remained for me some day to achieve something, to destroy something. That was where the steel came in. . . . The goal of my life was to acquire all the various attributes of the warrior. . . . Body and spirit had never blended. . . . Somewhere, there must be a higher principle that manages to bring the two together and reconcile them. That principle, it occurred to me, was death.” Yukio Mishima, Sun and Steel
Dasha Nekrasova
Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Echoes of Mishima a three-person exhibition of Japanese artists Go Mishima, Sadao Hasegawa and Tamotsu Yato. September 21st - November 4th, 2023
Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Echoes of Mishima a three-person exhibition of Japanese artists Go Mishima, Sadao Hasegawa and Tamotsu Yato. September 21st - November 4th, 2023
Amsterdam 123 B, Col. Hipódromo Condesa
Mexico City, Mexico 06100