Abstract
- Micki Meng in San Francisco is presently presenting For Sport by Amanda Ba by means of June 27.
- In a showcase of seven figurative work, Ba examines the cultural mythos embedded in sports activities, spectacle and athleticism.
Because the NBA Finals heats up, a brand new exhibition in San Francisco invitations us to think about the tales that empower our beloved video games. At Micki Meng, Chinese language American painter Amanda Ba presents For Sport, her debut solo exhibition within the NorCal hub, turning to the language of athleticism — our bodies in movement, muscle groups below stress – as a method to discover deeper themes of identification, spectacle and energy.
The works on view construct off the concepts in Ba’s Creating Want exhibition staged at Jeffrey Deitch final fall, this time zeroing in on the psychosexual drama of high-performance sport. On this showcase of seven figurative work, a newly conjured forged of characters tackle the likes of boxers, hunters, synchronized swimmers, basketball gamers, weightlifters and skiers. Whereas embodying the grit and beauty of their respective video games, the East Asian feminine protagonists push towards stereotypes of obedience and hyperfemininity, asserting power, company and emotional complexity of their intensely muscular displays.
In a current interview with Dazed, Ba cited final 12 months’s Paris Olympics as a key inspiration: “It’s such a nationalistic show of sentimental energy,” she stated. “And it’s really easy, for me even, to be influenced by judgments of these moments and venture them onto a view of a whole nation.” Right here, mega-events, just like the Olympics, act as arenas the place “heroism, aggression and eroticism” play out in each pose, each punch. Greater than affirming a hometown or particularly nationwide pleasure, Ba explores how these competitions dually reinforce and refract cultural mythos and world hierarchies.
Highlights embrace “Knockout I & II,” the place two feminine boxers face off beneath stadium lights, their confrontation each brutal and balletic, echoing struggles past the ring. Moreover, “Hunters” depicts a determine touring amid a pack of beagles. With a shotgun slung over the shoulder and face shadowed by the invoice of a Sherlock’s hat, the piece rides the road between a “primitive exercise” — accomplished within the title of survival and “for sport.”
The exhibition is now on view in San Francisco by means of June 27.
Micki Meng Bayview
1720 Armstrong Ave.,
San Francisco, CA 94124
