Betwixt the Hands of Time

Titled Betwixt the Hands of Time, the show revolves around a moment of central importance for the evolution of the artist’s creative practice, that key moment in life that occurs in the transition from childhood to adulthood.

The theme of the advent of adulthood recurs in what the artist calls “celebratory skins”: the figures that inhabit the gallery spaces as unknown creatures that only vaguely resemble human features. These wearable costumes speak to us of self-adornment: they are staged as a symbol of transformation, having that magical power to transform us into someone else, to make us feel older and more mature. Allowing us to play a new role, these ornamental garments transport us into the dimension of the fantastic and attempt to make real what we often dream of being like. It is then up to us to let the dream connect with reality.

The artist’s signature large stained-glass panels are staged in the main gallery room as symbols of inner strength. These works attempt to represent how we choose to reveal our vulnerability to others, encouraging us to see that showing fragility is a way to demonstrate the more inner, emotional part of ourselves. The two installations Celebration (mother) and The Gift (child), unleash that magical, ancestral power of accumulating new energy each time they are shown to the public. Although separate and imbued with their own independent energetic force, these works live in the constant tension of reconnecting and uniting in a new form.

Raúl de Nieves**, born in 1983 in Morelia, Michoacàn, Mexico is a visual artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY The Treasure House of Memory, ICA Boston, Boston, MA and Eternal Return & the Obsidian Heart, and the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami, FL, 2021–22, Fina, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 2019. He was included in the Whitney Biennial, 2017 and MoMA PS1’s Greater New York, 2015. He has exhibited widely, including at the New Orleans Museum of Art; The Museum of Art and Design, New York; Rod Bianco, Oslo; Mendes Wood, DM Sao Paulo; and the Zabludowicz Collection, London.

He has performed at Documenta 14, Performa 13, MoMA PS1, ICA Philadelphia, The Watermill Center, The Kitchen, Artists Space, Real Fine Arts and numerous other venues.