GUEST CURATOR PROGRAM
from WORKED: ARTIST LABOR RELATIONS curated by Grace Clark
An important focus for A.P.E. is to provide access and visibility to both emerging and established artists within Northampton and beyond. The newly launched Guest Curator Program gives contemporary artists and curators more agency in the curatorial process A.P.E. selects 2-3 curators per year who facilitate and assemble exhibitions from local, regional, and national arts communities. For every exhibition that is curated, there must be at least one regional (Massachusetts or greater New England) artist that is represented. We do this to give a more prominent voice to artists of our region, while creating a conversation with contemporary artists from farther away. These exhibitions range in approach and media and are interspersed throughout A.P.E.'s exhibition season.
The 2022 inaugural selection committee included Associate Director Lisa Thompson, Zoe Sasson, Carolyn Clayton, Jil Crary-Ross, and Aidan Wright. For 2023, they will include past curators Grace Clark and AJ Rombach, along with two participating artists from last season's exhibitions. If you would like to apply for the Guest Curator Program, please visit our submissions page for more information.
If you are interested in supporting this program, you can make a donation HERE
The 2022 inaugural selection committee included Associate Director Lisa Thompson, Zoe Sasson, Carolyn Clayton, Jil Crary-Ross, and Aidan Wright. For 2023, they will include past curators Grace Clark and AJ Rombach, along with two participating artists from last season's exhibitions. If you would like to apply for the Guest Curator Program, please visit our submissions page for more information.
If you are interested in supporting this program, you can make a donation HERE
Guest Curator Exhibitions • 2022
David Aipperspach, Sundial (3), 36" x 40", oil on canvas, 2022.
SHADOW WORK
Curated by AJ Rombach
October 14 - November 6, 2022
Participating Artists:
David Aipperspach
Natessa Amin
River Kim
Lena Schmid
Stephen Proski
SHADOW WORK examined painting's potential to trace the cognitive and unconscious thought of maker and viewer. What does a symbol communicate? How do paintings act as bridges between subjective and collective experience? How do art objects encapsulate ontological mystery? Natessa Amin and Lena Schmid’s abstracted work relies on systems of invented symbolism that become catalogs of dreams, events, energies and desires. River Kim bridges Amin and Schmid’s abstraction into an embodied expression of fur and latex, large enough to dress a monster. David Aipperspach illustrates the dilemma of embodiment, perception and subjectivity. Stephen Proski's oversized braille monument, and collection of playful yet darkly titled symbols, profoundly punctuates this dilemma in a gesture purposefully alienating. SHADOW WORK inherits its title from the psychoanalytical work of Carl Jung. Jung insisted that, "It is the essence of the symbol to contain both the rational and the irrational," (Jung, Liber Novus, 57,) SHADOW WORK aimed to create an environment in which the unconscious be permitted to (consciously) surface.
AJ Rombach is an artist, educator and curator based in Massachusetts. AJ has an MFA from Boston University (2022) and a BFA from Boston University (2010.) AJ is a 2022 Walter Feldman Fellow. AJ is a founding member and former co-director of FJORD, an artist-run space in Philadelphia and has been included in solo and group exhibitions at SPACEUS, Boston; University City Arts League, Philadelphia; Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia; Satellite Art Fair, Miami; CSA Gallery, Philadelphia; and Rodger LaPelle Gallery, Philadelphia. AJ has helped curate exhibitions in Philadelphia, New York, Miami + Boston and has painted murals in Costa Rica, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Santa Fe, and Minneapolis. AJ taught as a lead teacher at Acorn Gallery School of Art in Marblehead, MA. AJ now lives in Leeds, MA.
This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Art Angels, through the Community Foundation of Western Mass.
Curated by AJ Rombach
October 14 - November 6, 2022
Participating Artists:
David Aipperspach
Natessa Amin
River Kim
Lena Schmid
Stephen Proski
SHADOW WORK examined painting's potential to trace the cognitive and unconscious thought of maker and viewer. What does a symbol communicate? How do paintings act as bridges between subjective and collective experience? How do art objects encapsulate ontological mystery? Natessa Amin and Lena Schmid’s abstracted work relies on systems of invented symbolism that become catalogs of dreams, events, energies and desires. River Kim bridges Amin and Schmid’s abstraction into an embodied expression of fur and latex, large enough to dress a monster. David Aipperspach illustrates the dilemma of embodiment, perception and subjectivity. Stephen Proski's oversized braille monument, and collection of playful yet darkly titled symbols, profoundly punctuates this dilemma in a gesture purposefully alienating. SHADOW WORK inherits its title from the psychoanalytical work of Carl Jung. Jung insisted that, "It is the essence of the symbol to contain both the rational and the irrational," (Jung, Liber Novus, 57,) SHADOW WORK aimed to create an environment in which the unconscious be permitted to (consciously) surface.
AJ Rombach is an artist, educator and curator based in Massachusetts. AJ has an MFA from Boston University (2022) and a BFA from Boston University (2010.) AJ is a 2022 Walter Feldman Fellow. AJ is a founding member and former co-director of FJORD, an artist-run space in Philadelphia and has been included in solo and group exhibitions at SPACEUS, Boston; University City Arts League, Philadelphia; Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia; Satellite Art Fair, Miami; CSA Gallery, Philadelphia; and Rodger LaPelle Gallery, Philadelphia. AJ has helped curate exhibitions in Philadelphia, New York, Miami + Boston and has painted murals in Costa Rica, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Santa Fe, and Minneapolis. AJ taught as a lead teacher at Acorn Gallery School of Art in Marblehead, MA. AJ now lives in Leeds, MA.
This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Art Angels, through the Community Foundation of Western Mass.
Worked: Artist Labor Relations
Curated by Grace Clark
August 10 - September 3, 2022
Worked: Artist Labor Relations, was an exhibition of 7 innovative artists working in painting, printmaking, video, performance, sculpture, installation, social practice, and combined media. Artists highlighted include Ash Strazzinski, Eeshita Kapadiya, Ella Weber, Roz Crews, Sarah LaPonte, Thunder Miller, and kelli rae adams.
Worked was curated by A.P.E.’s inaugural guest curator, artist Grace Clark.
Artists often have a unique relationship with work, as they, themselves, have the privilege of determining the labor that consequently makes up their practice. However, many artists’ practices can be heavily influenced by the financial need to work additional full-time jobs. How do artists lean into balancing this obligation and desire? By making their day job the inspiration for their art, using their practice as a platform for discussion, or simply saying, “I can’t”? Worked explores how artists respond to their relationship with labor––through critical discourse, radical rest, and intentional play––to consider the many shapes that labor can take.
Labor structures have a deep history of exploitation, censorship, and disproportionately allocating creative resources, especially within marginalized communities. Worked aims to share the thoughts, actions, and feelings of a variety of arts workers, especially in communities highly susceptible to this including people of color, femmes, poor, disabled, queer and trans folx.
Grace Clark is an artist, educator, and arts worker. She has been employed in numerous art world and non-art world settings including galleries, museums, schools, artist studios, non- profits, freelance photography, retail, the food industry, and more––all while maintaining her own creative practice. After becoming injured from overwork on a museum job, a condition that left her unable to use her arm to make art for herself or hold down a full-time job for an entire year, Clark experienced a transformative identity shift in conjunction with an extreme change in her relationship with work, her trust in the structures that distribute labor, and her own ability to care for herself. As her body still feels lingering tensions from the past, Clark is continuing to learn
about her personal relationship with labor through the help of others, especially the artists courageously and thoughtfully sharing their experiences in this exhibition.
This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Art Angels, through the Community Foundation of Western Mass.
Curated by Grace Clark
August 10 - September 3, 2022
Worked: Artist Labor Relations, was an exhibition of 7 innovative artists working in painting, printmaking, video, performance, sculpture, installation, social practice, and combined media. Artists highlighted include Ash Strazzinski, Eeshita Kapadiya, Ella Weber, Roz Crews, Sarah LaPonte, Thunder Miller, and kelli rae adams.
Worked was curated by A.P.E.’s inaugural guest curator, artist Grace Clark.
Artists often have a unique relationship with work, as they, themselves, have the privilege of determining the labor that consequently makes up their practice. However, many artists’ practices can be heavily influenced by the financial need to work additional full-time jobs. How do artists lean into balancing this obligation and desire? By making their day job the inspiration for their art, using their practice as a platform for discussion, or simply saying, “I can’t”? Worked explores how artists respond to their relationship with labor––through critical discourse, radical rest, and intentional play––to consider the many shapes that labor can take.
Labor structures have a deep history of exploitation, censorship, and disproportionately allocating creative resources, especially within marginalized communities. Worked aims to share the thoughts, actions, and feelings of a variety of arts workers, especially in communities highly susceptible to this including people of color, femmes, poor, disabled, queer and trans folx.
Grace Clark is an artist, educator, and arts worker. She has been employed in numerous art world and non-art world settings including galleries, museums, schools, artist studios, non- profits, freelance photography, retail, the food industry, and more––all while maintaining her own creative practice. After becoming injured from overwork on a museum job, a condition that left her unable to use her arm to make art for herself or hold down a full-time job for an entire year, Clark experienced a transformative identity shift in conjunction with an extreme change in her relationship with work, her trust in the structures that distribute labor, and her own ability to care for herself. As her body still feels lingering tensions from the past, Clark is continuing to learn
about her personal relationship with labor through the help of others, especially the artists courageously and thoughtfully sharing their experiences in this exhibition.
This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Art Angels, through the Community Foundation of Western Mass.
Wanna Come Over?
curated by Aidan Wright and Ariella Heise
April 5 - 24, 2022
Wanna come over? was a group installation piece at A.P.E. gallery led by art students at Smith College. Working in collaboration, the senior class students (both Art History and Studio Art majors) sought to recreate the space of a Smith dorm room. Using the classic school-chosen furniture as well as trinkets, textiles, wall art, doodles, and more, this room represents the inner spaces of student life as they contrast the elusive exteriors of a private institution.
Participating artists included:
Phoebe Collins, Paige Oliveira, Fay Adan, Talia Heyman, Ariella Heise, Shreya Dwibedy, Ashai Gonzalez, Nicole Huang, Sandra Pomelo-Fowler, and Eve Liberman.
curated by Aidan Wright and Ariella Heise
April 5 - 24, 2022
Wanna come over? was a group installation piece at A.P.E. gallery led by art students at Smith College. Working in collaboration, the senior class students (both Art History and Studio Art majors) sought to recreate the space of a Smith dorm room. Using the classic school-chosen furniture as well as trinkets, textiles, wall art, doodles, and more, this room represents the inner spaces of student life as they contrast the elusive exteriors of a private institution.
Participating artists included:
Phoebe Collins, Paige Oliveira, Fay Adan, Talia Heyman, Ariella Heise, Shreya Dwibedy, Ashai Gonzalez, Nicole Huang, Sandra Pomelo-Fowler, and Eve Liberman.