Marz Jupiter
July 3, 2023
Coralie Vogelaar
July 3, 2023Tatiana Istomina
“Life Mechanics”
Curated by Juan Puntes and Yohanna M. Roa
Opening Friday, July 7, 2023. 6 - 8 pm. 9 Ave B
The Front Window Program II
Join us next Friday July 7 6 - 8 pm, for the opening reception of WBX Summer '23 Artists Studio Program, and The Front Window II—a populist sidewalk exhibition series—headlining Tatiana Istomina's “Life Mechanics”, a project including sculptures and hand embroideries exploring the seemingly well-established binary between a mechanism and a living organism. The works draw from diverse pictorial sources, such as documentation of the early physiology experiments, Soviet-era photography, and the schematics of the first analog computer designed by Charles Babbage in the 1830s. The project is inspired by the ongoing advances in science, technology, and social conditioning tools, which blur the boundaries between human consciousness and programmable reflexes, living tissue and hardware. The curators, in selecting Istomina's work found a succinct deja-vû in some ways parallel to our social systemic and high tech surveillance politically and existentially conditioning present.
Statement
Tatiana Istomina is a multi-media artist working with painting, sculpture, film, and text. Her exhibition “Life Mechanics” includes sculptures and hand embroideries exploring the seemingly well-established binary between a mechanism and a living organism. They draw from diverse pictorial sources, such as documentation of the early physiology experiments, Soviet-era photography, and the schematics of the first analog computer designed by Charles Babbage in the 1830s. The project is inspired by the ongoing advances in science, technology, and social conditioning tools, which blur the boundaries between human consciousness and programmable reflexes, living tissue and hardware.
Bio
Tatiana Istomina is an artist and writer working in New York; her practice includes painting, sculpture, installation, and video. Istomina’s projects have been featured in exhibitions and screenings across the US and abroad; venues include the AIR gallery, the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, the Drawing Center, the Bronx Museum, Gaîté Lyrique, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Istomina is a recipient of multiple awards including the AAF Prize for Fine Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, the Individual Fellowship from New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Coalesce Bioart Fellowship. She worked at multiple residencies, such as Yaddo, the Core program, the Drawing Center’s Open Sessions, Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands) and RAVI (Belgium). Istomina holds a PhD in physics from Yale University and MFA from Parsons New School.