In Practice:

What if there existed no such thing as closure? SculptureCenter posits that that possibility is not terrifying, but generative. The 25th edition of “In Practice,” its signature open call and exhibition which supports emerging artists and curators, features commissions by Carlos Agredano, Leslie Cuyjet, Kyrae Dawaun, Dominique Duroseau, Hugh Hayden, Sunny Leerasanthanah, Abigail Lucien, André Magaña, Catalina Ouyang, Chiffon Thomas, and Quay Quinn Wolf, and is curated by Katherine Simóne Reynolds, a 2019 alum of the program. Painting, though present, takes a backseat to sculpture, audio, and video installation in this group show. Accompanied by a catalog, online programming, performances, and an artist roundtable, “You may go, but this will bring you back” interrogates non-resolution via themes of loss, grief, and mortality.

In Sunny Leerasanthanah’s video installation Wuthichai (Exit Interview) (2021), male actors stand in for the artist’s deceased father; the purpose is not to seek resolution, but rather to revel in the very open-ended-ness of answerless questions. Other works take a more oblique view on the central themes of the exhibition. Carlos Agredano’s Shipped (ICE Box) (2020), consisting of a block of melting ice sourced from Ellis Island and the Rio Grande, greets the viewer at the entrance of the exhibition. Riffing off the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Shipped comments also on the unequally devastating effects of large corporations, their costs to the environment, and to the bodies who produce the labor that sustains them.