Independent New York 2022

Kasmin is honored to participate in the 2022 edition of Independent art fair at Spring Studios in Tribeca, New York, from May 5-8 with a solo presentation of 11 new sculptures by vanessa german (b.1976, Milwaukee).

As a self-taught citizen artist, german’s multi-disciplinary practice examines and challenges traditional methods of artistic practice. Through her work, german proposes new models for social healing, utilizing creativity and tenderness as vital forces to reckon with the historical and ongoing catastrophes of structural racism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, resource extraction, and misogynoir.

A visual storyteller, german utilizes assemblage and mixed media, combining locally found objects to build protective ritualistic structures known as power figures or tar babies. Modeled on Congolese Nkisi sculptures and drawing on folk art practices, her work is embellished with materials including beading, glass, fabric, and sculpted wood, and come into existence at the axis on which Black power, spirituality, mysticism and feminism converge.

Upholding artmaking as an act of restorative justice, german confronts and dismantles the emotional and spiritual weight of the multi-generational oppression of African American communities. As a queer Black woman living in the United States, german has described this as a deeply necessary process of adventuring into the wild freedom that the inhabitation of such identities demands. This activist instinct emerges in german’s work to postulate powerful narratives of freedom and love.