Pilar Corrias is pleased to present the second exhibition by American artist Tschabalala Self. The exhibition features new paintings, sculpture and an animation that continue to foreground Self’s exploration into the cultural expectations placed upon the gendered and racialised body. Through her use of form and function, Self parses the iconographic significance of the Black female body in contemporary culture. In Thigh High, the garments, shoes and accessories worn by the figures add a layer of complication to their form.

The emotional, physical and psychological implications of the figure’s fashioning gives way to existential concerns. In each work, there exists a tension between foreground and background that mirrors the character’s position in the larger social context. As silhouettes emerge and disintegrate into the pictorial plane, the politics of identity jump to the surface. Shown in unison, the characters, articulated through stitch and textile assemblage, create a community and hold space for varied iterations of a shared experience.

Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self possesses the rare quality of being keenly sensitive to the impact of environment and the way it shapes human social behavior. Self creates and positions black figures to serve as a decoding device of circumstance, allowing each individual perspective to speak to the community from which it has derived. Her empathetic and intel-lectual density guides the creation of a black universe assembled with great distance from white ideology.

(Sasha Bonét)

Tschabalala Self (B.1990 Harlem, USA) lives and works in New York and New Haven. Future exhibitions include: ICA, Boston (2020); Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2020). Current and recent exhibitions include: Tschabalala Self, Art Omi, Ghent (2019); MOOD: Studio Museum Artists in Residence, MoMA PS1 (2019); Bodega Run, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019); Tschabalala Self, Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2019); Bodega Run, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2018); The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2018); Bodega Run, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London (2017); Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, New Museum, New York (2017); Tschabalala Self, Tramway, Glasgow (2017); Tschabalala Self, Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London (2017); Desire, Moore Building, Miami (2016); The Function, T293, Naples (2016); A Constellation, Studio Museum Harlem, Harlem (2015); Tropicana, The Cabin, Los Angeles (2015).