Tschabalala Self

Swiss Institute is delighted to present a book launch and installation by Tschabalala Self to celebrate the culmination of the artist’s long-term project, Bodega Run. Initiated in 2017, Self’s Bodega Run explores these small, largely family-run corner stores as a central institution in the collective imagination and everyday realities of multiple communities of color in New York City. For three days in, SI is hosting a special installation of Self’s Bodega Run, including new paintings, sculptures, and wall-mounted reliefs, accompanied by a neon sign installation in the window, temporarily turning the building into a bodega imagined by the artist. The publication features newly commissioned texts by some of today’s leading writers alongside Self’s vibrant visuals examining bodega culture from racial, gendered, and diasporic perspectives.

Tschabalala Self (b. 1990 Harlem, USA) lives and works in New York’s Hudson Valley. Self is an artist who builds a singular style from the syncretic use of both painting and printmaking to explore ideas about the black body. She constructs depictions of predominantly female bodies using a combination of sewn, printed and painted materials, traversing different artistic and craft traditions. The formal and conceptual aspects of Self’s work seek to expand her critical inquiry into selfhood and human flourishing.