Touch

Arinze Umenyiora, Aya Brown, Daniel Regan, Devlin Claro, Frank Dorrey, Jeremy Grier, Nathaniel Matthews, Sister Engineering, Taylor Simmons, Zev Magasis

“Touch is one of the most important senses for other senses to thrive.

It's confirmation to let us know what's real or not.

You don’t know something real until you touch it when you feel it with your hands, when you feel it in your soul.

You need touch.

You don't know how much you love someone till they touch your soul.

Over these past two years we were demanded to not use this essential sense.

What does touch look like now?

What does it mean to people post-covid?”

—Steven Traylor

CCProjects is pleased to present Touch, a group exhibition co-curated by Steven Traylor and Roman Zangari. The exhibition presents a diverse array of perspectives on the notion of touch, explored through a range of mediums spanning painting, photography, digital illustration, sound, and video.

Touch is integral to the human experience. Facilitated by complex networks of sensory receptors throughout the body, touch informs how we perceive and relate to our physical surroundings, experience emotions, engage with others, and connect with ourselves.

In a time when physical contact has become increasingly limited by pandemic restrictions and the prevalence of digital technology in our daily interactions, it is more pertinent than ever to consider our relationship to the vital sense of touch. Reflecting on the past two years and their impact on our collective relationship to tactile sensory experience, curator Steven Traylor asks, “what does touch look like now?”

Working in collaboration with Roman Zangari, Traylor invited artists of diverse backgrounds and practices to contribute works that speak to how they understand and think about this vital sense. Considering the breadth and subjective nature of the subject, Traylor organized “Touch” both as a presentation of contemporaries making compelling and evocative work across a variety of media and a bellwether of our individual and collective consciousness.

“The concept of touch is a rabbit hole. The deeper you go, you start to figure out more things about it,” says Zangari. “There are so many different implications of what touch means from person to person.”

The artist's contributions present a complex range of interpretations that broaden and reframe our understanding of what tactile sensation means on both a personal and interpersonal level. From examining how different senses like sound can touch us emotionally, to exploring how we interact with material reality; the works defy categorization, instead emphasizing exploration and investigation. Each artist presents a unique perspective with thematic and visual throughlines, examining themes such as intimacy and a sense of belonging, how physical objects may facilitate relationships in unexpected ways, and how we experience interpersonal relationships through modalities ranging from figurative representation to abstraction and surrealism. Individually, each work speaks volumes; together, they converse in harmony.

Steven Traylor is a creative director and multi-disciplinary artist working in photography and film. Exploring themes of race, sexuality, masculinity, and family, the artist employs a variety of mediums—analog photography, video, text, collage, sound, and sculpture—to tell a story of his community. Touch is Traylor’s first curatorial project with CC Projects.

Roman Zangari is a musician and curator based in Los Angeles. Touch is Zangari’s first curatorial project with CC Projects.