Closing Reception and Catalog Release for Girl You Want Exhibition

Please join us for the closing reception and catalog release for Girl You Want, an exhibition curated by J. Vanessa Lyon and featuring artists Genevieve Gaignard, Julia Greenburger, Jen Liu, Josh Rabineau, Wendy Red Star and Beatrice Red Star Fletcher, Karinne Smith, Ivy Stewart, and María Vargas Aguilar.

“Through the windows of race, gender, class, sexuality, and dis/ability, people perceive and are perceived,” says J. Vanessa Lyon. “Media shapes our assumptions and children are regarded by others and themselves as the good or bad or real or best kind of girl.”

Girl You Want gives onto this fraught expanse of coming of age. In diverse, often subtle, forms the exhibition’s nine artists conjure up temporalities that, depending on one’s circumstances, can end traumatically, too soon — or imperceptibly — before awkwardly (or seamlessly) segueing into adulthood. While far from comprehensive of the countless embodiments of girlhood and youthful femininity across identity and experience, the exhibition asks: What leaves girls wanting? What do we want from them? What is it like to mature or grow out of girlhood — or to have one’s growth undermined by it? Gazing back as we move inexorably forward, this ambitious multimedia show provides an intergenerational response.

ArtYard has a produced a catalog to document this inaugural exhibition with words by J. Vanessa Lyon, photographs by Paul Warchol and design by SOMEWHERE. Printed by Conveyor Studio. Catalogs will be available for purchase and a light aperitif will be served outside.