Dear Companion

Maggie Lee Ben Morgan-Cleveland Bernice Nauta Paul Pfeiffer

We originally thought this exhibition would be about dolls and puppets. Not in the performative sense but in the way they sail two ships: companion and spectator. In asking these four artists to participate, particularly in a show in a domestic environment, the intention with each was to bring into our apartment projects that brought the artist comfort in their studio, fabrications of characters in proximity. With Paul it was the intimacy of the lonely figure on a tiny screen, with Bernice it was the trickster mimicking her studio labors, with Maggie it was a heart on her sleeve, and with Ben it was his puppet.

The show transformed as we arbitrated four representations of duality into a single vessel: spectatorship. Whittled down, the crafted spectator is a witness with at least four disguises: a specter acting as unpredictably as Ben’s pin hole camera lens; Bernice’s shape-shifting, costumed observer aching for a pattern to clothe its presence; Maggie’s secret soundtrack frames our ablutions with wet tempo; and Paul’s icon unfolded to be visible, saturated with color and spectacle to seduce.

Maggie Lee (b.1987, New Jersey) lives and works in New York. She has exhibited internationally at venues including Real Fine Arts, the Whitney Museum, Greene Naftali, Lomex, 356 Mission, Kunsthalle Zurich, the New Museum, and Arcadia Missa.

Ben Morgan-Cleveland (b. 1984, American) lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions were held at Kai Matsumiya, Eli Ping, and Shoot the Lobster, New York. He taught in the Photography department at Pratt with Robert Snowden. Morgan-Cleveland cofounded and ran Real Fine Arts from 2008 to 2018 with Tyler Dobson.

Bernice Nauta (b.1991, Deventer, NL) lives and works in The Hague. She has exhibited internationally at spaces including CAR DRDE, 1646, and Jose de la Fuente. Nauta programs the alternative space Billytown The Kitchen in The Hague.

Paul Pfeiffer (b.1966, Hawaii) lives and works in New York. He most recently participated in the Vancouver Biennale, Vancouver and Performa 19, New York. Pfeiffer had numerous solo presentations at international venues, and was the 2018 Teiger Mentor in the Arts at Cornell University.