Instagram story viewer> @katherine.1433> Posts

Katherine C. M. Adams

@katherine.1433

1.3K

followers

1837

following

curating, writing, research
🔹️NY

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Samson Young and I spoke about the technological sublime, database cinema, and the power of aesthetic fragmentation to convey the scale and complexity of information architectures, in a new conversation for his 2025 commission and exhibition 'Pavilion' at New Taipei City Art Museum. In the newly released catalogue of the show, our latest conversation is published alongside a reprint of our 2022 BOMB Magazine interview addressing 'Variations of 96 chords in space,' also shown at NTCAM alongside 'Pavilion'.

Today, multiscreen, multimedia installations and exhibitions are pervasive in contemporary art. Yet syncing multiple media simultaneously was once a novel technical problem. Earlier multiscreen systems aimed at amplifying the scale of a single unfied image: panoramic, authoritative, total. In a groundbreaking project 'Think' presented at the World's Fair in 1964, Charles and Ray Eames took a different approach. Numerous screens covered a specially made pavilion, and the audiovisual content varied depending on where you looked. This was immersion, but fragmentary, architectural, and multiperspectival.

Samson Young's 'Pavilion', a commission with the New Taipei City Museum, took inspiration from this history, evolving it to explore the technological dynamics of the present. Across seven screens and an epic score, 'Pavilion' reorganized the gallery space and placed us inside an orchestration of sound and image. The work's blend of archival and AI-composited material gave the feel of a high-tech "wunderkammer," collecting and reanimating the technical feedback loops that shape our shared cultural symbols.

Samson and I continued our work together earlier this year when I curated a new installation of Samson's work 'Liquid Borders' (2012–14) in 'staging grounds' (2026) at EMPAC.

📍'Samson Young: Pavilion' is published by @ntcart.museum on the occasion of the exhibition. Alongside essays by curator Hsieh Feng-rong and Eric Schuldenfrei. Many thanks to Samson, Hsieh Feng-rong & the NTCAM team.
📍'Samson Young: Pavilion', New Taipei City Art Museum, 2025–26

#samsonyoung
hsieh_ramen
@bombmag

📷by me: Stills of 'Pavilion' in the exh cat, & at NTCAM. by @katherine.1433

38

0

a day ago

Several compelling works in Venice explore the threshold of visibility, a recurring concern in my curatorial and research work. This summer, I visited presentations by three artists I've had the pleasure of working with.

~P. Staff's hypnotic Terminal Lucidity(5-6) leaves an afterimage that exceeds the bounds of the screen. Its strobing lights and insurgent soundtrack linger in the mind's eye, drawing our subjective conditions of vision into the frame of the work.
~Claudia Pagès Rabal's Paper Tears(1-4) takes historical watermarks (which appear only when paper is held to light) and treats them as symbols that capture experiences of extraction. In audio that moves between hope and alienation, unity and exhaustion, performers reinterpret these marks through wordplay and choreography filmed aerially. Laser projections of watermarks line the walls, and the central video is screened amid sculptural, amphitheater-like seating that slopes steeply around the exhibition space.
~Li Yi-Fan's Screen Melancholy(7-9) asks what the virtual needs in order to produce the feeling of reality. Its protagonist is deliberately the least seamless figure in the film, awkward enough to feel embodied and to expose the mechanisms behind fluid motion onscreen.

We explored related ideas in projects I curated at EMPAC. Claudia's residency, screening, and talk there centered on artistic research and experimentation with watermarks. In Flesh/Flash, which included screenings of P.'s recent work following their artist residency, P. and I discussed scanning technologies such as X-rays and thermal cameras as a kind of cinema without visible light, one that engages the body directly. And I presented Li Yi-Fan's What is Your Favorite Primitive in staging grounds; it's now on view in the Carnegie International (@carnegiemuseumofart).

On view in Venice through November 22:
Claudia Pagès Rabal, Paper Tears, Catalan Collateral Event of the 61st Venice Biennale, cur. Elise Lammer
P. Staff, Terminal Lucidity, 2026, in Canicula, Fondazione In Between Art Film, cur. Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi
Li Yi-Fan, Screen Melancholy, Taiwan Pavilion, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, cur. Raphael Fonseca

📷:me by @katherine.1433

51

3

11 days ago

“What is commitment in a world without belief, what is rigor when irony seems to be intellect’s only honest posture?”

Our newest Uncanny Juxtaposition is out now—and you’re going to want to check this out! Katherine C. M. Adams (@katherine.1433) compares, contrasts, mixes, and superimposes two pieces—sweat variant’s my tongue is a blade and Isiah Medina’s Gangsterism—in a review that can only be described as a dance of words . . . check it out now!

Link: https://asapjournal.com/review/uncanny-juxtaposition-in-the-cut-my-tongue-is-a-blade-and-gangsterism/

#Black #BlackStudies #Blackness #Contemporaryperformance #performance #Performancestudies #Performanceart #philosophy #Blackphilosophy #Postcolonialtheory #experimental #Experimentalfilm by @katherine.1433

44

3

2 months ago

Yehwan Song dismantles the contemporary obsession with “liquidity” as a metaphor for digital culture, writes Katherine C.M. Adams, not by pointing out the material infrastructures of the internet but positing laborious, physical sculpture as a “corrective” to the myth of frictionless societies and economies.

Read at the link in bio.

#katherinecmadams #yehwansong #subtitlednyc

@katherine.1433 @subtitled.nyc

Images: Yehwan Song, The Other Internet, 2026. Images courtesy of Subtitled NYC, New York. Photo by Garrett Carroll. by @katherine.1433

3

3

3 months ago

The feminine subject in Lynn Hershman Leeson’s works is often a cipher for the ways all of us are embedded in technological networks. As her works cycle through self-conscious gender performance—women on a pedestal, trapped in another's fantasy; women spurned and discarded, disappearing after idealization has run its course—Leeson has an uncanny way of creating the possibility for her characters' escape through the same technologies (computational or societal) that initially imprisoned them.

Leeson’s works locate us both inside and outside the human, inside and outside of our shared reality and of our technological confines. Her personae are seemingly knowable—navigable through a computer program's architecture—and yet fully elusive. And, potentially, they can gain agency by mobilizing their own precarious position on the threshold of personhood. In her interactive works especially, the artist draws viewers into this cycle of gender-technological oscillation—between being held by and being released from a consumptive (often male) gaze; between being a user and being used by the technology. The women in these works come to haunt the screen, and themselves, through integrating with the technological substructure.

I wrote about Leeson's interactive works—specifically Lorna, Deep Contact, and A Room of One’s Own—for ‘Lynn Hershman Leeson: A History of Her Own’ (ed. @_lisa_long_) out with @moussemagazine / @juliastoschekfoundation. This trio of works offers something like a preamble to the cyborg. Their protagonists may enact paranoia, seduction, or evasion as they experience the contraction of their world into a hyper-mediated scene—but the claustrophobic technology that begins by locking them in might become, with the audience’s absorption in the work, their means of escape.

Link to the book is in my bio.

1. Spread featuring stills from Lorna in A History of Her Own 2. Cover of A History of Her Own by @katherine.1433

44

0

4 months ago

Wrote on the recent restaging of Joan Jonas's The Juniper Tree at @danspaceproject for @pamuseum_ . The March 2026 performance revisited the work (previously shown at Danspace in 1976) alongside archival documentation from prior iterations. In my review, I explore how the Brothers Grimm story the piece is based on begins to mirror the stakes of the re-performance itself. The slain son at the core of The Juniper Tree's narrative, later resurrected as a bird, devises a song that bears witness to his fate. Repeated performances of his composition lend him agency and presence within the story, ultimately restoring him to his original form.

This deceptively simple work, full of moral drama and mystical transformations, raises the question of what it means to restage live, experimental work that has already been canonized. Read more at link in my bio!

Images: Joan Jonas, The Juniper Tree, 2026. Performed at Danspace Project, New York City. Photo: © Rachel Keane by @katherine.1433

62

0

5 months ago

How can New York’s institutions help to sustain a culture of freedom and experimentation when so many artists are forced to live precariously? Katherine Adams examines this year’s ”Greater New York,” which wrestles—not entirely successfully—with the city’s anxieties and conflicts.

Read at the link in bio.

#katherineadams #greaternewyork #momaps1

@katherine.1433

Images: [1] Farah Al Qasimi, Kabob House, 2026. Photograph, 30 × 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles. [2, 3] View of “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1, New York, 2026. Courtesy of MoMA PS1. Photo by Kris Graves. by @katherine.1433

3

0

6 months ago

Opening this weekend! Excited to share my latest curatorial project at @empac_rpi --staging grounds, a festival featuring new commissions, installations, performances, and public programs 🌟 Join us, we would love to see you there! ❤️ Full details at link in my bio🔥

----

staging grounds February 20-28, 2026

Featuring --
Korakrit Arunanondchai (with Tosh Basco, Rueangrith Suntisuk, Pornpan Arayaveerasid, Aaron David Ross, Alex Gvojic, and Michael Beharie)
Li Yi-Fan
Na Mira
Jewyo Rhii
Samson Young

Join us for staging grounds, a new art festival taking place at EMPAC from February 20-28,2026. Featuring Korakrit Arunanondchai, Li Yi-Fan, Na Mira, Jewyo Rhii, and Samson Young, the festival is a platform for performance, installation, and public programs.

By staging our shared experiences, how might we open up new forms of collective possibility? A ‘staging ground’ is the architecture for an event—a place where people, objects, and ideas gather in anticipation of an unfolding scene. Each artist in staging grounds explores how art, cultural memory, and experience are shaped by structures that re-animate events across time. Across bold new commissions, haunting performances, and delicate artistic gestures, they ask how culture survives by being continuously re-staged.

staging grounds features new commissions by artists Jewyo Rhii and Korakrit Arunanondchai with Tosh Basco, Rueangrith Suntisuk, Pornpan Arayaveerasid, Aaron David Ross, Alex Gvojic, and Michael Beharie. Additional artworks by Na Mira and Samson Young, and film by Li Yi-Fan. The program spans open installations and public programs in three distinct sites of gathering—the studio, the lobby, and the theater. Each invites you to witness, question, and take part in the unfolding scenes.

@liyifanyifanli @kritbangkok @duckunit_ @michael_beharie @toshbasco @aarondavidross @trend_reznor @barakat_contemporary @empac_rpi

Image: EMPAC/Michael Valiquette by @katherine.1433

79

1

8 months ago

Join us next Friday, February 6, for a conversation with artist Jewyo Rhii (@barakat_contemporary) and curator Katherine C. M. Adams (@katherine.1433). The program will consider Rhii’s artistic formation in Seoul, South Korea, and the impact of the city’s rapid industrialization on Rhii’s practice, as well as her recent work staging exhibitions internationally. Rhii and Adams will focus on Rhii’s new project Wing Theater, a new commission premiering at @empac_rpi in February 2026, which combines Rhii’s ‘storytelling machines’ into a stage-like, living archive. ⁠
⁠
Please note that RSVPs are mandatory. Be sure to follow the link in our bio to secure your spot! ⁠ taken in Asia Art Archive in America by @katherine.1433

133

2

9 months ago

Some final views from 2025--moments from shows and travel over the last two months 📸 See you in 2026 ❤️
1-2. Álvaro Urbano @tfam_museum Taipei Biennial
3. Korakrit Arunanondchai @kritbangkok @tfam_museum Taipei Biennial
4. Skyler Chen @skylerchen @tfam_museum Taipei Biennial
5. Isaac Chong Wai @isaacchongwai @tfam_museum Taipei Biennial
6. Simon Dybbroe Møller @rest_on_your_belly_in_the_mud @tfam_museum Taipeo Biennial
7. 'As Shore, As Dream' Puangsoi Aksornsawang with Tongkwai Lulin, Liew Niyomkarn, Rhythm of Sati, Ornanong Thaisriwong and Wanlop @ghost2568ghost
8. Haegue Yang: Leap Year @yanghaegue at @migrosmuseum
9. Rose Lowder @kunsthallezurich
10. Rose Lowder's film diagrams from @kunsthallezurich
11. Karol Palczak @karolpalczak @kunsthallezurich
12-13. Haegue Yang: Leap Year @yanghaegue at @migrosmuseum
14-19. In the mountains, northern Italy 🌟 by @katherine.1433

65

0

10 months ago

Curator and critic Katherine C. M. Adams @katherine.1433 speaks with artist-filmmaker Suneil Sanzgiri @suneil_sanzgiri about the making of An Impossible Address, a new work developed between Angola, Goa, Portugal, and North America and presented across exhibition and cinema contexts. An Impossible Address has its American premiere later this month.

Read the conversation at e-flux Film Notes via the link in bio.

Image: Suneil Sanzgiri, An Impossible Address (still), 2025. by @katherine.1433

3

0

a year ago

Excited to share the exhibition of Suneil Sanzgiri’s new film 'An Impossible Address' at @empac_rpi . How do we bear witness to revolution interrupted? Styled as a letter whose delivery and composition is frustrated by historical erasure, Suneil's new work pursues the story of Goan-born revolutionary Sita Valles—who was disappeared from Angola after her involvement in its anti-colonial struggles against Portuguese empire in the country. The film's exhibition at EMPAC activates the venue’s performance-focused infrastructure to explore the traces of political stages throughout Sanzgiri’s work.

Grappling visually, sonically, and narratively with the difficulty of querying Valles's elusive history from the standpoint of a silent present, 'An Impossible Address' confronts the contradictions of solidarity.

Please check about the exhibition of the film as an installation running at EMPAC from October 29 to November 1, 2025– see the link in my bio for more information! Join us *Saturday, November 1st* for a reception alongside open installation hours. Also on November 1st, from 1pm-2:30pm, you can catch the screening program Memory Without Measure, guest-programmed by Yasmina Price @jasminprix in relation to the themes from Sanzgiri’s work, and offered in parallel to the exhibition.

The film 'An Impossbile Address' is a co-commission between EMPAC and @mercerunion, and is the culmination of much dialogue and close collaboration. It has been a very rich experience for me as a curator, and this is a work that has so much to give us in this moment–so grateful to Suneil for his trust and to others who were integral to the process. Special shout-out to our team; and to Mercer Union Curator Aamna Muzaffar and the Mercer Union staff whose support and input was integral to the piece.

—

Images: Suneil Sanzgiri, An Impossible Address, film still, 2025. Courtesy of the artist. by @katherine.1433

72

1

a year ago