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Sweet Dreams, Nosferatu: Yuli Yamagata

Past exhibition
September 10 - October 23, 2021
  • Overview
  • Installation Views
  • Works
  • Press
Overview
Yuli Yamagata Bode (The Rolling Stones), 2021 Silk, elastane, velvet, plush, silicone fiber, and sewing thread 82 5/8 x 110 1/4 x 7 7/8 inches (210 x 280 x 20 cm)
Yuli Yamagata
Bode (The Rolling Stones), 2021
Silk, elastane, velvet, plush, silicone fiber, and sewing thread
82 5/8 x 110 1/4 x 7 7/8 inches
(210 x 280 x 20 cm)

Public Opening: September 10, from 6 - 8 PM 

 

Anton Kern Gallery is pleased to present Sweet Dreams, Nosferatu, the Brazilian artist Yuli Yamagata’s first solo exhibition in New York. 

 

Yamagata’s concept for the exhibition is activated in two parts and across two geographic venues. Part one is hosted at the gallery in New York, and part two is staged at Passion For Beds, a mattress store located in Basel, Switzerland, as part of Art Basel Parcours. While Yamagata’s Nosferatu will be “sleeping” in a bed at the Basel mattress store, his dreams will spill out into his bedroom, and come to life at the gallery. A sculpture of a store-bought chicken with a chopstick antenna will inhabit both locations and act as a portal between the two time zones. 

 

The gallery exhibition consists of twenty new works, which operate as manifestations of Nosferatu’s unconscious desires and fears. Throughout the space are nine undulating fabric paintings, two wall-based reliefs, two wall-mounted sculptures, and seven freestanding sculptures supported by flexible aluminum armatures. 

 

Yamagata’s choice of materials provides sensory pleasures, with juxtapositions of batting-stuffed Lycra, velvet, and silk intermixed with found materials such as eyeglasses, corn husks, and dehydrated shrimp coated in resin. The body - both animal and human - is consistently referenced in the forms of bones, feet, claw-like hands, stuffed socks, intestine shaped coils, chicken parts, and fake eyeballs. Her fabrics act as skins, sometimes pierced or adorned with jewelry. Through her hyperbolic use of food and body parts in her sculptures, these elements become sympathetic characters, their positioning and colors evoking different emotions such as anger, sadness, excitement and foreboding. 

 

Bode (The Rolling Stones), the largest fabric painting in the exhibition, is inspired by a fan’s cover art for a remixed version of the group’s 1973 album Goats Head Soup. In the painting, a close-up of an evil goat head simultaneously repels the viewer and invites them to pet it. Disc shaped fields of tie dye patterns occupy the right half of the composition, creating an opposing force, contending to reach a balance. Yamagata plays with these dualities – drama and harmony, attraction and repulsion, sweet and sour – throughout the show. 

 

Yamagata’s sinuous free-standing sculptures evoke freehand drawings in space. Plant-like forms emerge out of resinous puddles conjuring visions of humans and monsters, a limbo environment between the mortal and immortal. The anthropomorphic Mr. Mister sculpture is a seated figure made up of bones and stained marijuana leaf patterned socks. Its green hand makes a beckoning gesture inviting us in for a closer look into a bowl of mysterious stew balanced at the top, where his head should be. 

 

In the green plaid fabric painting Teenagers, two mouths are entwined in a French kiss. Intermingled in the passionate scene are unsettling elements such as a bloodshot eyeball made of felt, and a cut-out portion of the canvas shaped like a drop of blood. A stuffed fabric coil draped over the top of the painting serves as a frame. The oil painting entitled Sweet Dreams, Nosferatu acts as a counterpart to the piece. Its film still composition portrays the erotically frightening moment just before Nosferatu sinks his teeth into the neck of a beautiful woman. 

 

Yamagata’s playful use of Pop culture references defangs the horror in her work, allowing the viewer to indulge in the absurd possibilities of dreamscapes. Her impure use of the vampire legend, dosed with a psychoanalytical approach and filtered through a psychedelic civ, addresses the pathos, humor, and hypocrisies of modern life. Through the framework of a dream, Yamagata provides a safe outlet for exploration of our dark fantasies without the consequences of reality. 

 

For additional images and information, please contact: press@antonkerngallery.com. 

 

Yuli Yamagata was born in São Paulo in 1989, where she continues to live and work. The artist graduated from the University of São Paulo with a BFA in sculpture, and has exhibited nationally and internationally since 2015. Yamagata will be featured in the 2021 edition of Art Basel Parcours, presenting a multidisciplinary installation in which she imagines Nosferatu’s bedroom and a night of wild dreams. 

 

Recent noteworthy solo exhibitions include: NERVO, Museu de Arte Contemporânea Niterói, Rio de Janeiro (2021); Insônia, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo (2021); Bruxa, Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon (2020); Microwave Your Friends, Invitro Cluj, Cluj-Napoca (2019), and Tropical Extravaganza: Paola and Paulina, SESC Niterói (2018). Additionally, Yamagata’s work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including: Samba In The Dark, Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2020); Esqueci de Acordar, Diablo Rosso Gallery, Panama City (2020); A Burrice dos Homens, Galeria Bergamin & Gomide, São Paulo (2019); Perdona que no te crea Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro (2019), and Rocambole, which traveled from Pivô, São Paulo (2018) to Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2019).

Download Press Release
Installation Views
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery, three works featured including the largest piece of the show, Bode (Rolling Stones).
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Two works shown.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Three works featured.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Multiple works featured, showcasing the material variety of Yuli's works.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Many works shown.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Many works featured .
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Three works shown.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Two hanging works featured.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Two works featured.
  • Installation view of Yuli Yamagata's first show in New York and at Anton Kern Gallery. Exit from the third floor, featuring two smaller works.
Works
  • Yuli Yamagata Tronco sonhando, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Tronco sonhando, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Teenagers, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Teenagers, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Bat Coming Home, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Bat Coming Home, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Hand with Snakes, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Hand with Snakes, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Bode (The Rolling Stones), 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Bode (The Rolling Stones), 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Mr. Mister, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Mr. Mister, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Limousine, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Limousine, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Yoru Ika, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Yoru Ika, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata LSD on the Beach, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    LSD on the Beach, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Buqué, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Buqué, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Dirty Dreams, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Dirty Dreams, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Smoker, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Smoker, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Manicure, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Manicure, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Chicken Tock Clock, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Chicken Tock Clock, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Colgate, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Colgate, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Sweet Dreams, Nosferatu, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Sweet Dreams, Nosferatu, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Corn Field, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Corn Field, 2021
  • Yuli Yamagata Connecting My Dots, 2021
    Yuli Yamagata
    Connecting My Dots, 2021
Press
  • Yuli Yamagata, 'Sweet Dreams, Nosferatu'

    Andrea K. Scott, The New Yorker, September 24, 2021

Related artist

  • Yuli Yamagata

    Yuli Yamagata

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