Gema Álava • Emilie Gossiaux • Annie Leist • Anthony Ptak • Gordon Sasaki • Julia Yepez

June 22 – July 22, 2017 The Gallery at Industry City dis: three letters that can reverse, revoke, rebuke, rebuff, or perhaps, release social stereotypes. This exhibition of work by the inaugural cohort of Art Beyond Sight’s Art and Disability Institute reflects the diversity of the art that is created under the banner of dis. These artists redefine disability as both a subjective and objective experience. Their personal relationship to disability falls along a broad continuum, as does the relationship of disability to their work. Collectively, they form a cross section of the many ways artists working with and around disability contribute towards broadening conversations on the potential of art.

2 3 Born in Madrid, Spain, Álava now lives and works in . She studied at the Facultad de BBAA de Madrid (BFA), Universidad Complutense (MA, Education); Chelsea College of Art and discreet Design, The London Institute (BFA); Academy of discern Art University (MFA), and at the San Francisco Art Institute (MFA, New Genres). discipline Álava’s artwork has been exhibited, presented, disseminate and/or funded by the Ministry of Education of Spain; United Nations; Queens Museum of Art; dissolve Gema Álava Bronx Museum of the Arts; Cervantes Institute; and CUE Art Foundation, NYC; San Francisco Art disperse Institute, SF; Rana Museum, Norway; Margulies Collection, Miami, FL; Jersey City Museum, NJ; distinguish Fundación La Caixa and Fundación Maphre; distilled Museo de la Ciudad de Quito, Ecuador. Her project A Dialogue was selected by Cai-Guo-Qiang distracted and performed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2008. Her project Trust Me was distant selected for MANIFESTA 8 and Berlin Month of Performance Art. She was appointed Cultural Adviser to the World Council of Peoples to the United Nations in 2011. She is represented by Maus Contemporary.

4 5 “My work — in the form of installation, drawing, photography, art projects — deals with what I call “contradictory truths” and the capacity to “create a maximum by reversing a minimum.” My art projects — Gema Álava Gema Álava in the form of dialogues, verbal descriptions, rumors Confía en Mí (Trust Me) (detail) and random encounters — explore notions of trust and 2017 intimacy, and use language as a medium to investigate the interconnections that exist between public, private, An art project by Gema Álava educational, and interpretative aspects of art. Location: Quito, Ecuador Participants: Bln Bike (Belén Some of my interactive art projects have been inspired by Jaramillo), Christian Cerda, and developed with the participation of individuals with Edgar Dávila Soto, Ramiro Díez, disabilities. I am interested in the way people respond Reina Victoria Diez, Lisa Khon, differently to the same situation, and explore this by Fernando López Guevara, Natalia leaving space to interpretation.” Luzuriaga, Susana Nicolalde and Renato Reúl Ulloa Photos by Leslye Guayasamín and Danee Ramón

Gema Álava Trust Me 2010 An art project by Gema Álava Location: New York, NY, Participants: Ellen Fisher, Mayrav Fisher, Jonathan Goodman, Jessica Higgins, Erika Kawalek, Erika Knerr, Alison Knowles, Ferran Martin, J. Morrison, Gordon Sasaki and J.G. Zimmerman Photos by Jason Schmidt Gema Álava Hexagons 2015 22-carat gold leaf floor installation Dimensions variable

6 7 Emilie Gossiaux is an artist from New Orleans currently living in New York City. She began her undergraduate studies at the Cooper Union School of Art in 2007, but during her senior year, dislocated she lost her sight in a near-fatal traffic accident. displaced After two years of extensive therapy, and regaining her independence, she returned to Cooper Union disembodied to complete her senior year. Gossiaux was the first blind student to graduate from The Cooper dismembered Emilie Union with a BFA in 2014, and was awarded the Elliot Lash Memorial Prize for her excellence in disillusioned Gossiaux sculpture.

disenchanted Gossiaux has shown her sculptures and paintings in several art galleries and institutions around the disaster world, including Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in distant London, Storefront Lab in San Francisco, Cantor Fine Arts Gallery in , 5 Press Gallery disobey in New Orleans, Recess Gallery in New York City, False Flags in Long Island City, the Smithsonian dissolve Institute of Art in Washington, D.C., and in 2017 was represented by False Flags Gallery at the NADA New York City art fair. Gossiaux was accepted into Yale University’s Master of Fine Arts sculpture program, and will begin her graduate studies in the Fall semester of 2017.

8 9 New York City-based artist Emilie Gossiaux works in various mediums, including sculpture, sound art, and social practice. She takes inspiration from memories, her intimate relationships, as well as her interactions Emilie Gossiaux Emilie and experiences in the world without vision. Relying Orange on Blue Gossiaux solely on her sense of touch, Gossiaux makes sculptures 2016 with ceramic, plaster, and papier-mâché, demonstrating a profound sensitivity towards shapes, textures, and Watercolor, materials. Her series of ceramic sculptures use color and plaster and glazed form to play with the mechanisms of visual perception, earthenware trigger memories of sensations, and create abstract, 70 x 30 x 38 inches uncanny associations to the human figure. Gossiaux also incorporates a multi-sensory aspect in her work, with touch, sound, performance, and social practice, that invites the audience to become a part of the work and experience it.

Emilie Gossiaux Lemon Gloves Emilie Gossiaux 2017 Brooklyn 2017 Glazed earthenware and acrylic 30 x 24 x 3 inches Terra cotta, plaster and papier-mâché 55 x 16 x 16 inches 10 11 disappear discern disclose disengage Annie Leist is an artist, born and raised in North disorient Annie Leist Carolina, and currently based in New York City. dispel She pursued undergraduate study at Wake Forest University, double-majoring in studio art and disquiet mathematics. As a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar she studied semiotics and cultural theory at Trinity dissolve College in Dublin, Ireland. She went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in visual art from distinguish Rutgers University. Her paintings, inspired by her distort limited visual perception of light and life in urban spaces, can be seen in numerous public and private collections.

12 13 “Crosswalks, sidewalks, intersections, scaffolding — all are manifestations of the physical, social, and psychological architectures of urban spaces. They form a framework around, within, and through which city life and city people flow. I am fascinated by the unwritten Annie Leist rules of public space that maintain, sometimes miraculously, the precarious order of the metropolis and its inhabitants. Cityspace expands and collapses; it can be shaped or distorted by those who pass through it. It hosts simultaneously, paradoxically, countless isolated individuals as well as the single surging organism of the crowd. Artmaking enables me to move through public places on my own terms, a feat that often eludes me in reality, as my personal navigation is mediated by my visual impairment. I am legally blind and lack the depth perception provided by stereo vision. I do have a particular sensitivity to the unruly, deceptive, and beautiful characteristics of space and light, especially where they confront humanity and its need for orderly systems. I use painting, video, photography, and performance to re- envision these locations, to present them in a new way that highlights their ambiguity and fleeting grace, elements so often overlooked in the Annie Leist daily rush of human routine.” Beacons: Red Hand 5 2008 Oil on canvas 37 x 48 inches

Annie Leist Revolving Door 2 2010 Annie Leist Oil on canvas Beacons: Red Hand 6 20 x 24 inches 2010 Oil on canvas 16 x 16 inches

14 15 Anthony Ptak is an interaction designer, artist, performer, and composer based in New York City. He received his BA in media studies/cultural criticism from SUNY Buffalo in 1992 and an MPS from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications dissonance Program (ITP) in 2010. He has studied with Tony Conrad, Paul Sharits, Peter Campus, Lydia Kavina, disorientation and Herbert Brün, and had technical consultations with Robert Moog. Between 2000-2007, he was a disagreement Anthony guest theremin artist under director Scott Wyatt at the historic Experimental Music Studios (EMS) distance Ptak at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. disambiguation He has presented his works at SEAMUS Society for ElectroAcoustic Music in the United States, disassembly School of the Art Institute, Chicago Cultural Center, St. Louis Art Museum, Institute for distillation Advanced Study Princeton, Roulette Intermedium, the Kitchen, the Stone, Galapagos Art Space, distortion Chelsea Art Museum, and Issue Project Room disapprove in New York City and at NIME Sydney, 2010. He performed at the First International Theremin Festival and is a founding member of the New York Theremin Society. In 2007, Ptak’s son was born with Down syndrome. In 2011, Ptak was diagnosed with primary central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma (brain cancer). The pair experiments with ways to create art together; both have become visible and vocal advocates for individuals with disabilities.

16 17 “My goals as an artist are to promote acceptance of differences and to design a society that allows for empathy and degrees of freedom despite the constraints we may find ourselves challenged by, whether genetically Aedan Ptak Anthony encoded or otherwise acquired, in the complexities Auspice 3 Ptak of our society. I bridge distances between disparate 2015 communities. I speak the language of technologists, create change, and advocate access and openness by seeing what Ink on exhibition fibre others will not see, and saying what others will not say. 17 x 22 inches I am an artist, composer, interaction designer, educator, critical thinker, musical scientist, public speaker, brain cancer survivor, and disabilities advocate.”

Anthony Ptak Informodulation.08 2009 Digital inkjet on canvas 48 x 72 inches

Anthony Ptak Anthony Ptak Brain Cancer in Orange Reprise.17 Xtremecane Jump 2017 2017 Acrylic on canvas Digital HD video 14 x 14 inches installation for screen 17:22 loop 18 19 aphrodisiac New York City-based Gordon Sasaki’s work blends unconventional techniques with contemporary disperse ideas of identity and culture. Combining an unexpected use of images and materials, his disarm mixed and multi-media works purposefully cross discipline over traditional categorical boundaries to create Gordon possibilities and inclusion. Recipient of awards discover Sasaki from the Pollock-Krasner, Joan Mitchell, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Puffin discussion Foundations, his work is exhibited internationally and is held in museums, corporate, and private distortion collections.

faddish A wheelchair user due to an automobile accident, Sasaki brings a unique combination of personal indispensable insight and academic training to his work as nudist an artist. He is a dedicated proponent for the inclusion of the arts as a life tool, invaluable to everyone and relevant to all aspects of daily life.

20 21 “My work explores the intersection between art and identity, using Gordon Sasaki familiar images and the language of representation as an exploration of Gold Wheelchair the human condition. Referencing the body and its display as a social 2015 and cultural construction, a simultaneously private and public form of Acrylic and gold leaf on paper Gordon reflection, whose beauty and/or ugliness is fraught with bias and holds Sasaki 70 x 42 inches up a mirror to our politics and priorities. I am interested in work that reflects a diversity of voices and how that diversity contributes to the richness of a contemporary multi-layered society. This includes disability. Through my work I reference disability as a part of my identity, significant but not a singular all defining characteristic, more accurately just one facet of a metaphorical identity that contributes towards the making of an individual and cultural identity. In these works that reference the human body (or its absence) through the life-size recreation of wheelchairs, more specifically my wheelchair, I explore the symbolism of disability through the historicism of visual language and cultural precedence. I literally use the “seen” and “unseen” as techniques to create these loaded cultural portraits.”

Gordon Sasaki Icarus (detail) 2017 Clear PVC plastic and monofilament 36 x 40 x 120 inches (approx.) Gordon Sasaki Silver Wheelchair 2016 Acrylic and silver leaf on paper 70 x 42 inches

Gordon Sasaki Black & White Wheelchair 2017 Acrylic on paper 22 70 x 42 inches 23 disassemble disposable discriminate disconnected dispensable Julia Yepez disposable Injured in a car accident, Julia Yepez suffered spinal cord injuries and is now a wheelchair user. distorted She credits her art with giving her renewed self- esteem and confidence. “Creativity through my disturbed art has transformed my entire lifestyle,” she notes. “My freedom to fly is a simple paintbrush!” disembodied dismembered

24 25 “When I am surrounded by Nature, I feel centered and a Julia Yepez sense of oneness. It seems to crystalize my thinking and Pantano mindset. When I lived out West in Utah, I was within a 2014 ten-minute ride of mountains, wildlife, streams, and the Acrylic and gesso on canvas Julia Yepez ever-changing colors of the woods themselves. 22 x 30 inches A feast for the senses, these elements of Nature help us all to regain greater serenity and foster a communal understanding of, and respect and awe for flora and fauna. This type of peace is not available within the concrete jungles of large cities where people seem to compete on who can make the most noises. My paintings reflect my respect for Nature. I wish I could bring forth all of Nature’s fragrances, the sounds of the wind caressing the leaves, and the taste of pure, cool mountain streams. Through the acrylic colors I choose for my paintings, I hope to recapture the essence of the woodlands I miss so much.”

Julia Yepez A Frame with a View 2017 Julia Yepez Acrylic and gesso on canvas Lucid Road 47 x 36 inches 2009 Acrylic and gesso on canvas 22 x 30 inches

Julia Yepez Park City House 2010 Acrylic and gesso on canvas 47 x 36 inches 26 27 About Dedalus Foundation About Art Beyond Sight The Dedalus Foundation was founded in Art Beyond Sight (ABS), a 501(c)(3) 1981 by the artist Robert Motherwell in formerly known as Art Education for the order to foster public understanding of Blind, is the leading voice and clearinghouse modern art and modernism. In fulfilling this for best practices on accessibility and mission, the Foundation operates programs multi-sensory learning through the arts. in arts education, research and publications, We inspire and provide resources across archives and conservation, and exhibitions, the cultural sector for the full integration as well as in the guardianship and study of of people with disabilities. When the Robert Motherwell’s art. organization began in 1987, our mission Partners, supporters and key ADI was to make art and visual culture team members accessible to those with vision loss. Over Our partner, the Dedalus Foundation, time we found our multi-sensory methods provided the home for the ADI Institute, as also help people with other disabilities. well as its public programming and the dis Our mission has expanded to support exhibition. access to art and cultural offerings for Support for this pilot year of ADI and its people with many types of physical or public program was provided by the New cognitive disabilities. Now ABS techniques, York City Department of Cultural Affairs, curricula, and programs are used by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, museums, schools, and cultural providers and the Mayor’s Office for People with around the world. Disabilities. And of course, we owe Catalogue creative direction and graphic tremendous thanks to Annie Leist, Zoya design by Christine Donnellan, Art Beyond Kocur, and Kira Lynn Harris for their Sight, and Leslie Sisman. Editorial by Nayda efforts in helping to give life to the dream Rondon. that ABS President and Founder Elisabeth Registrar & Exhibitions Manager, Claire Axel envisioned for ADI. Altizer, the Dedalus Foundation, Inc.