Neither Here Nor There

Neither Here Nor There is an exhibition about place and placelessness, featuring artworks made during an unstable time marked both by reconnection to one’s immediate community and disconnection from those further away. As we continue to navigate relationships during the ongoing pandemic—traveling less, seeing one another through screens more—these artists examine our changing feelings of being in our bodies, outdoors, and in space with others. These works were all completed in 2020 and early 2021.

Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972, Colorado Springs, Colorado) realized To Feel Myself Beloved on the Earth (2020) during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and amidst national calls for racial justice. In the film, multiple dancers appear in fields, forests, and the rooftop of nearby Westbeth Artists Housing, oscillating between meditative breathing and un-choreographed movement. Maria D. Rapicavoli’s (b. 1976, Catania, Italy) The Other: A Familiar Story (2020) follows a woman forced to migrate from Catania, Italy to Lawrence, Massachusetts, across her imposed matrimony and longings for home. While Rapicavoli began the work before the pandemic, she discovered undeniable resonances with her main character having lived through the 1918 Spanish Flu. In Laida Lertxundi’s (b. 1981, Bilbao, Spain) Under the Nothing Night (2021) two unnamed female characters, trapped between image and projection, perform a languid choreography set against a backdrop of seascapes and bucolic children’s cartoons. The work evokes the mediation of the world through screens, longing for travel, and the freedom of the out of doors.

Organized by Melanie Kress, Curator of High Line Art.