James Fuentes LLC is pleased to announce Agathe Snow’s forthcoming solo exhibition, Just Say Yes. Just Say Yes marks the beginning of a yearlong project by Snow to investigate Leonardo da Vinci and his world. For this exhibition the artist is using da Vinci’s fables as the basis for new sculptures, giving form to their episodic narratives. While this use of the fable perhaps implies a moralistic gesture, Snow embraces the satire of such an ambitious objective. Focusing on theatrics, time, and invention, the exhibition explores the personalization of the most archetypal narratives, and asks what the fantastical inventions of the Renaissance can say about the American Dream.

The installation will be a “total work of art” consisting of three-dimensional works / hanging mobiles, and maximizing the parameters of the gallery space. A complete artists statement is included with this press release. Snow’s recent projects have ranged from a week-long dance marathon at this year’s Whitney Biennial to acting as a “Sand Bank” teller at the Parrish Art Museum where she invited visitors to make deposits of sand which are redeemable after 100 years.

From the artist:

For the first time in years I feel like I can take my time. I’ve thought it through and Leonardo Da Vinci, is a guy I need to devote a year to. A whole year, I am in no rush, this time. It’s campaign season. It’s election year. It’s in between time. It’s transition time. It’s early renaissance time and Da Vinci is just the company I need to not lose myself and really let loose. I mean, the guy really went for it during that previous time we call the Renaissance.

For this show I’ll try to make sense of his fables, the cautionary tales I’ll chew on and make mine for when things get moving again. I’ve always wanted to get back to the theater, I think often of staging a play using his stage design and then, I intend to build some of his machines and see where it takes me…call be naive, but i think of his machine not of function but resilience in the face of absurdity and the unknown. They are made of dreams and that’s what I think of the make of America. I never wanted to get pinned down, but I came into this for a voice, a conversation and I figured I had to stick myself somewhere for a while to start an exchange. I’ll stay put for a while, feet on the ground, on earth, in the hope of…just want to make sure that i am alive, that I exist and that there is such things as the now and the forever. It all starts with this weird dream that just felt so real…

...I am in this casino, and there’s my life, a messy pile of chips, pushed? Thrust? Jerked? No matter the word, it seats now, promised wager, right in front of me, naked, defying and vulnerable…There are many players around the table. They are all standing there and I am not anymore.? I want to be with my brothers in play, I’ve waited so long, I want to play, what happened? I was there just a minute ago. In any case, no one is playing. They’re all staring at the clock, at their wrist watches, chatting half heartedly, not really there, just wasting time, they’re all big time, they’ve made it, they’re reckless for fun, trusting that time somehow will blow me away. They don’t want to go home just yet, they’ve all just left the office. They’ve got their tax cuts for charity.

They’ve had to die to many times to become, they’ve had to kill too many to be here today. “I’m dying here”...I start laughing hysterically no one takes me seriously, I can’t help myself, I find beauty in everything, it’s a wonderful, wonderful world… I’m not their problem, I’m not even of their kind. Our lives don’t match up…Why did we have to become so smart, so specialized, so civilized, so right, so-so, S.O.S? NOW, somebody really needs to do something, don’t just stand there, HELLO, you know the drill, it’s also you right there, it’s everyone that’s ever lived, it’s me, it’s a lot, but it’ll come back to you tenfold, one green to get in, 9 of the big red ones, 1 of the blue and 1 yellow, just talk to the cashier…somehow I cannot stop laughing, I’m alive, I’ve made it, I’ve made it all the way to the US of A and I’m losing life but I’m living, I am living the American Dream.

Does anyone remember the “American Dream”? Anybody up for a friendly game of make believe?..I am a legal alien…Dinner is served…coffee? ... The table is still un-turned, here’s your big chance to flip it over. Let’s go outside, Let’s sit on the ground, Let all things get big again…maybe if you wanted we could even hold hands or light a fire at night…and right there it hits me, I’ve just been the happiest I’ve ever been, I need a rest, the more I die, the more I am, I drift happy…the game is dead long live the dead…

..this is your wake up call…I’ve let you call me your own everyday to call one’s own, I am the callector call sheet cattle call catacall castracall, you have nothing to call your own curtain call, I call upon you up your skirtcall sinicall, callture, ornicallture you’ve called for trumps to call a spade a spade… this is your wake up call, remember your 8 am call back, should I really call the all thing off… call me you can call me any day or night, do not call me names, call me Lucifer, call me to the bar, call of the wild did anyone call? I’m the one they call the Critic, call on me and I’ll call you, once I call you John I promise never to call you names, if you live a little longer, a little less, we’ll both get somewhere. Don’t hang up just yet, let’s call it art. I need your help I was just about to put a stop to the Dark Ages and write of an American Renaissance. Resuscitate me…I’ll let you pick a name for it. How does “Resemblance” sound to you? You could be the first “Resemblance Man”... It’s a simple game of cards and you get to pick. Let the game begin again and may the best one win. – Agathe Snow, August 6, 2