Lesser Deities of Summer

Underdonk
1329 Willoughby Ave #211. Brooklyn, NY 11237
August 15th to September 6th, 2015
Gallery Hours: Sat – Sun 1pm – 6pm,
and by appointment
Video Screening: September 3rd

Jesse Bransford
Peter Clough
Christopher Davison
Lorenzo De Los Angeles
Evie Falci
Jennifer Gustavson
Elizabeth Insogna
Alessandro Keegan
Jac Lahav
Tracy Molis
Ryan Schneider
Jennifer Sullivan
Bob Szantyr
Nick van Woert
Saya Woolfalk

curated by Kari Adelaide and Max Razdow

Lesser Deities of Summer celebrates the season’s wane with a group of works that may be considered devotional — perhaps suggestive of deities that have been demoted or erased over centuries, or are in the process of coming to be. Invocations might serve to engage temporality with the potential of timeless being, and multiplicities are common, such as Jupiter’s lesser known attributes as a god of “oak…of the rain and the thunder” (1). The presented works do not always portray capital G gods or goddesses but rather are self-made totems and apparitions: star crowned, flower crowned, or uncrowned; winged or wingless, reflective of desire and epitomizing the tremulous nature of our time and place. These works may be thought of as conjuring an essence which leads not back to the work itself, but traverses a space beyond grasp and as elusive as a passing season. The visual cues of divinity can sometimes be recognizable, such as great god Pan’s goat legs and horns, or Babylonian deities’ eyes inlaid with precious stones, but recognition is not always intentional or sacred. As the summer fades, we will attempt to collect a pantheon of lesser deities, seeking passage or pause as the season comes to an end.

1. Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1960), 185.

Image courtesy of Lorenzo De Los Angeles, Ganymede, 40″ x 30″, colored pencil on paper, 2015.

For more information, please contact The Sphinx at thesphinxnyc@gmail.com or Underdonk at info@underdonk.com