amani olu projects, in conjunction with P.P.O.W Gallery, is pleased to present Young Curators, New Ideas II, a curator focused exhibition that examines new voices in contemporary art through the perspective of seven New York based curators. These varied micro-exhibitions experiment with curatorial practice and an exploration of ideas as physical form.

Low Museum curated by Karen Archey: What is the process through which one becomes a curator of contemporary art? How does popular culture view the role of a contemporary art curator? Low Museum considers these questions and seeks to demystify the clichéd identity of the art professional through an installation of archived refuse from past curatorial projects and two video projects, one in collaboration with Daniel Chew.

In Heaven curated by Cecilia Jurado: In Heaven explores the paradox inherent within the exhibition title. Commonly interpreted as a paradisiacal space, the word “heaven” also conjures the drama of death and loss. The exhibition features works by Tom Fruin and by Norma Markley, formally, both works use fluorescent and austere white light to provide a sensory experience, summoning the audience into their poetics. Conceptually, the conversation between the two works becomes anxious with an underlying current of humor.

1973 curated by Megha Ralapati: This project explores our desire to absorb information, questioning how frequently we are actually able to develop original thought. Often ideas that we think are our own are merely reflections of information that have been filtered into our consciousness. The images in Jaret Vadera’s 1973 are originally from an educational video that have been manipulated to become a physical representation of the way the mind constructs and shapes information.

The Individual & The Family curated by Jose Ruiz: Works by Alejandro Diaz, Las Hermanas Iglesias, J&J, Jessica Ann Peavy, and Bryan Zanisnik entertain the rhythmic patterns between two seemingly divergent threads of art making and social inquiry—collaborative and identity-based work. Entering with a freewheeling interplay of handmade narratives, symbols and constructs that alter the stereotypes and clichés of their genres’ norms, these five artists turn displacement into engagement, while addressing issues of homogeneity and authorship with irreverent and humorous actions.

Comet Fever curated by Nico Wheadon: Comet Fever materializes a contemporary obsession with phenomena outside of human control and harnesses the tension of hysteria and choreography of ritual associated with the paranormal. Taylor Baldwin, Boyd Holbrook, Dawit L. Petros, Segtram, and Noelle Lorraine Williams neutralize this crisis of fear induced by the occult, rendering the world less fathomable and more magical. Imagination overthrows logic and testifies to the absurdist modes by which communal hallucination rivals the tools and science of modern intelligence.

Inaugural Reference Archive and Library curated by Cleopatra’s (Bridget Donahue, Bridget Finn, Kate McNamara, Erin Somerville): Cleopatra’s questions what curating means to those who define themselves as curators. As a way of inaugurating Cleopatra’s reference archive and library, the four founders wrote letters to working curators they collectively admire or respect asking for a book of the curator’s choosing. This inaugural bookshelf will later be permanently installed in Cleopatra’s storefront space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Deconstructing the Female Gaze curated by Women in Photography (Amy Elkins & Cara Phillips): Deconstructing the Female Gaze examines the work of Michele Abeles, Tierney Gearon, Els Vanden Meersch and Victoria Sambunaris, four artists working in methods that both question and challenge the stereotypical ways that women interpret the world through photographic practice. Engaged with contemporary art making practice in highly individualist ways, their work is both informed by and immaterial to their gender.