Pushing the Frame: Willful Transgressions

In our five-plus years of operation as Westlab + Gallery, we have been witness to a neighborhood ever resilient, though invariably impacted by the increasingly oppressive politics of our time. The realities of these politics play out daily within our community. And so we must find ways to resist — Pushing the Frame: Willful Transgressions unites thirty-two artists working across media and geographies to articulate a united chorus of resistance. Bridging convergent evolutions in art practices, cultures, histories, and identities, this exhibition looks at how art can actually make a difference in our lives "by acts of concrete reclamation" (bell hooks). The result is a multi-sensory experience that reorients the contemporary body politic through artwork including painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance, poetry, and textile (to name a few), and moving them into unprecedented shapes and forms. The interventions in this exhibition range from the deeply personal to the ambitiously macroscopic as they confront systems of power; from subtle and succinct to overtly transgressive as they reflect inner worlds and call for transformations. Together, they examine the damage surrounding us in order to generate a tapestry of incisions into the oppressor. Featuring work made by new friends from Gaza to South Korea, Los Angeles to Montreal, Chicago to Atlanta, and many New York-based practitioners, this exhibition testifies to the will to create, both as a means of survival, and more importantly as a way to envision new paths forward.