Nayland Blake and Sadie Barnette Exhibitions on View at ICA LA

‘No Wrong Holes: Thirty Years of Nayland Blake’ | Image courtesy of ICA LA

CalArtians Nayland Blake (Art MFA 84) and Sadie Barnette (Art BFA 06) present new individual exhibitions running from Sept. 29, 2019, to Jan. 26, 2020, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA).

Blake, who uses they/them pronouns, presents No Wrong Holes: Thirty Years of Nayland Blake. The exhibition is a comprehensive survey of Blake’s works from a career-spanning three decades, and marks their first solo presentation in a Los Angeles institution. Blake’s time in Los Angeles as a CalArts MFA student and subsequent decade in San Francisco is given particular focus, shown in works fashioned from leather, medical supplies and even food.

No Wrong Holes will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue courtesy of LA-based design studio Content/Object, which includes archival works, content from the artist and others, key reprints and commissioned essays. Blake will also participate in an Artist Talk at the Open House (Sunday, Sept. 29) from 2-3 pm with ICA LA Curator Jamillah James.

Blake draws heavily from feminist and queer liberation movements and a range of subcultures, resulting in a highly multidisciplinary practice. In 1995, they served as co-curator of the groundbreaking exhibition A Different Light at the University Museum in Berkeley, the first museum to examine the influence of LGBTQ artists on contemporary art. Blake currently serves as founding chair of the ICP/Bard MFA program at the International Center for Photography in New York City. They are the recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship.

‘Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon’ | Image courtesy of ICA LA

Barnette summons Conceptualism and Minimalism in her neon exhibition Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon. The exhibition is a reimagining of the historic Eagle Creek Saloon, San Francisco’s first black-owned gay bar, known as a space for multiracial LGBTQ folk excluded from the city’s other social spaces in the early ’90s. The establishment was founded by the artist’s father Rodney Barnette, who also founded the Compton, Calif., chapter of the Black Panther Party. The installation, which resembles a bar counter, is festooned with crystals and glitter, transforming “a dark chapter in American history” into a monument that transports the past to present while seeking opportunities for change. The exhibition is organized by ICA LA Curatorial Assistant Alex Nicholls. 

Barnette’s work has been exhibited around the world and hangs in the permanent collections of museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Florida; and Studio Museum, New York. She has been featured in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Artforum and Vogue, and is the recipient of Artadia and Art Matters awards.

Blake and Barnette were both mentioned in a recent profile of the Los Angeles art scene by renowned auction house Christie’s.