Brittney Leeanne Williams, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, Chris Oh, Evren Tekinoktay, Laust Højgaard, Maria Rubinke, Martin Brandt Hansen, Miju Lee, Noah Umur Kanber, Salomé Chatriot, Shona McAndrew, Urara Tsuchiya and Zevs

The Hole is proud to present Monomythology our yearly guest-curated summer group show in Tribeca, this year organized by The Asbæks who run COLLABORATIONS art consultancy and contemporary art space in Copenhagen. Monomythology looks at a new generation of religious avatars and idols, with artists creating their own religious visual language and deeply subjective images of “God”. Religion is polemical and the curators and artists did not seek to ruffle too many feathers but instead hoped to inspire viewers to think their own thoughts on a personal level. No good new “god" has been invented and visualized for many centuries. Why is this? Are we happy and satisfied with the ones we have?

The idea for the show came about, like all good ideas, through a conversation with an artist: this one between the curators and Martin Brandt Hansen, whose work stems from his Greenlandic origin exploring mythology from Inuit culture reinterpreting the classic tupilaq figure. In discussing art as a global language (and the most democratic language we have) alongside the underlying common ground of religions practically and visually, the invitation and inspiration for artists to create their own interpretations of religion came to fruition. Martin’s contribution Asiaq (a weather goddess accessionaly a god) depicted by a distorted face blasted by the wind in dark ceramic.

From Cathrine Raben Davidsen's four Pietá (a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Christ), to Miju Lee’s Under the Bodhi Tree that references the site of Buddha’s enlightenment, to Zev’s performance during the opening that liquidates the sun (one of the earliest entities of worship), the show focuses on religion yet each artist interprets religion on their own terms. While there are recognizable references to preexisting religions and practices, there are plenty that at first glance don’t read that way at all: Laust Højgaard brilliantly muscular Vessels for one or Maria Rubinke’s Uneasy Lies The Head That Wears A Crown, where a huge toad sits on top of a sitting girl's head. Without this press release perhaps you wouldn’t know that this show was about religion? While the work contains a plethora of icons and symbols, the hierograms (sacred inscriptions or symbols) are individual and invented.

We’ve got a little bit of heaven and hell in the gallery: Chris Oh’s Fountain depicts beautiful details from Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, meticulously painted on the cross-section of an anatomical model. On one side water flows, gushing life, fertility, and rejuvenation: the other side humbles us with the gory internal anatomy of the human head. Musculature, nerves, and blood vessels are exposed in an array of primary-colored venation.

In Brittney Leeanne Williams’s paintings we see self portraiture, placing herself in the works of Caravaggio and Segher, a new lead protagonist in these sacred paintings and stories. In Dream of St. Joseph (after Gerard Seghers) we see an update to Seghers painting from the 1600s: in both paintings a figure sits with an angel to the left, a candle and book to the right. Here in Brittney’s version, a late-night studio light bulb glows and a notebook sits above a page of sketches, with her recognizable arch paintings propped up against the table below.

If you look at the gods of the whole world, global and regional, there is a kinship between the various manifestations—both in purpose and physics, of course with cultural and practical differences—but on the whole, they are cut from the same material: human needs and human potential.

Our guest curators Thomas and Tania Asbæk began as art advisors. Seeking a fresh feel to the dynamic between advisors and galleries, they created a space where they could break their own limits. Exhibiting cutting-edge artists from Scandinavia and beyond, they also invite international curators to present thematic shows. Both Kathy Grayson and Julien Pomerleau (with Scroll) have curated shows in their gallery in Copenhagen, and we are extremely pleased they are returning the favor this summer.