Ficus Interfaith

In Lieu is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Ficus Interfaith (Ryan Bush and Raphael Cohen). This mark’s the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.

“The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in the medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.”

—Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

This exhibition began with us imagining Ficus Interfaith as a place. Comparing the qualities of a neighborhood/family/city/planet/spaceship/wilderness led us to examine the push and pull of peoples and the land. The artworks in this show are all “signs” insofar as they are aides for categorization and communication. They exist within our imagined place, Ficus Interfaith, which has been inspired by different features and systems of our current communities. This show utilizes various craft techniques and means of production to depict our vision of a municipal vocabulary. We are interested in the ways symbols and signs come into being and how they evolve beyond recognition through necessity, grace and violence.

Ficus Interfaith (Ryan Bush and Raphael Cohen) is an artistic duo based in New York, NY. Their sculptural practice is grounded in richly researched initiatives that explore personal and collective interactions with nature and natural history. Ficus Interfaith's work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Deli Gallery (New York), Interstate Projects (New York), Prairie (Chicago), and From the Desk of Lucy Bull (Los Angeles) and in group exhibitions at Rachel Uffner Gallery (New York), The Valley (Taos), Adams and Ollman (Portland), P.P.O.W. Gallery (New York), SculptureCenter (New York), in lieu (Los Angeles), South Parade (London), and MX Gallery (New York). They have been artists in residence at 2727 California Street (Berkeley) and Shandaken: Storm King (New York).