Catherine Slip Art Space, a new art space in Chinatown is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition, SICK LOVE, a group exhibition curated by Gillian Sneed. SICK LOVE combines fine art with ephemera, found material, and text in its exploration of themes including sex, love, identity, obsession, addiction, heartache, heartbreak, and illness.

Featuring the work of artists, writers, and curators the exhibition articulates multiple experiences and viewpoints in a range of media. Curator Dmitry Komis presents archival displays of several book collections from the 60s and 70s, raising questions around the issues of queer desire and romantic fetish. Also investigating modes of desire is the work of writer, Ewa Josefsson, who presents fragments of personal journal entries and letters exposing details from her own sexual experiences and intimate relationships. Whereas Joseffson presents us with a uniquely female perspective, Jason Osborne’s mixed media works on paper explore heterosexual male fetish, fear, and fantasy. Hope Gangloff’s poppy illustrative paintings glamorize human relationships, by sensationalizing the intimate moments of everyday life, and making the banal seem somehow larger than life.

Leemour Pelli also explores human relationships through the depiction of the common denominator we all share – anatomy. Depicting a kind of metaphysical biology, her paintings explore physical memory, perception, and the psychology of love. Manuela Paz approaches the psychology of desire through the double voyeurism of the mirror and the camera lens. Likewise, Michael Antkowiak’s drawings take on the gaze of the “peeping Tom,” who like a cinemagoer, peers into framed interiors peopled by men and women who share awkward and dysfunctional intimate moments. The most private of intimate moments are captured by Sarah Chacich’s audio installation and stop motion animation films, which confront female sexual taboo, intimacy, and loss in a unique and surprising manner.

In addition to these artists, the opening reception will feature several more works. Three videos will be screened, including: “Hospital of Love,” a dreamlike journey into female desire, by the Norway-based Performance Art Collective The Hungry Hearts; “Qualitative Analysis,” a found-footage video sampling from the 1960 science fiction film “The Wasp Woman“ by Brooklyn-based artist Laura Splan; and “Ennui,” a 1976 homemade super-8 narrative about a man who experiences a gay sexual encounter, by amateur filmmaker, Sylvan Rogers. Closing out the night’s events, DJ Emma Andrea will play a song set musing on many of the same themes explored in SICK LOVE.