Nevine Mahmoud

Soft Opening is pleased to present Babe, a solo exhibition of new work from Nevine Mahmoud, which is the final presentation at our residency at Paul Soto, Los Angeles. Mahmoud's exhibition is accompanied by a commissioned text, Cache, Babe, from writer Mary Walling Blackburn.

"Cache is trapper slang for hiding place. This gallery temporarily conceals Nevine Mahmoud’s sculptures–slender beast parts and toys for human animals–all compressed by and into marble, metal, clay, and plastic. Driven together, they are a faunal amalgamate. They exist beyond or after reproduction. With assists–poles and shelves and armatures–these sculptures cling to the manic aftershock of quasi-biblical begats, in other words, maybe these animistic forms incessantly seek out their birth origins: Are you my real father? Is Nanny Mommy? Why is the dog my half-brother? Do I share DNA with this deer? Presently, the work is lodged at a juncture, somehow situated between the Psychoanalytic Turn and the Surrealist Turn."

—Mary Walling Blackburn

Nevine Mahmoud (b. 1988, London) lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Collapse at Soft Opening at CFA, Milan (2023) with Maren Karlson; in mass and feeling at Soft Opening, London (2022); Matrix 188 at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (2022); Nevine Mahmoud at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles (2021). Selected group exhibitions include Rayon Jouets at Hangar Y, Paris; Cremona Art Week at Museo Archeologico San Lorenzo, Cremona (2024); Whisper Their Sinful Names at Chez Max et Dorothea, Los Angeles (2024); perfectly round, as we left them at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro in Milan (2021) and Romancing the Mirror at MoCA Jacksonville, Florida (2020). Mahmoud's work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.