Age of Rat and Bear
Studio 9D | New York, NY
December 7—9, 2023

Studio 9D and the Canopy Program are pleased to present Age of Rat and Bear, on view December 7th—9th, with an opening reception of December 7th from 6—8 PM. This 12-artist group show is the culmination of the 2023 Canopy Program, a year-long mentorship intensive with artist Clare Grill, created by artist and NYC Crit Club co-founder Catherine Haggarty.

The show's title comes from an essay by Anthony Huberman called "How to Behave Better," in which he champions "a new ethics of behavior [for artists], where winning matters less than wandering." The Age of Rat and Bear breaks from the strategic or competitive artistic modes of the past in favor of "a politics of care, an ethic of the commons, and a good sense of humor."

The 12 artists in Age of Rat and Bear have indeed spent 2023 wandering: creating their own fields of play, sharing radical candor and exploring their vulnerable relationships to knowledge. The result is a group of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations that feel as inviting as they are challenging, each planting a flag on a strange planet of their own.

Kaira Villanueva's video-game inspired, post-apocalyptic landscapes tap into the uneasy-but-ecstatic feeling of being lost in the wilds of a walking sim. Barbara Owen's sculptural paintings confront the high emotion of expressionist paint handling with the carefully considered boundaries of geometric abstraction. Ray Hwang's childhood-inspired depictions of dragons and enchanted talismans lay bare our own journeys through time and the feelings and memories that we leave along our path.

Artists: Ana Wieder-Blank, Barbara Owen, Cecil Howell, Jebediah Long, Janelle Junn, Jessica Corujo, Kaira Villanueva, Natalie Ortiz, Patrick Bower, Raymond Hwang, Wendi Men, and Zoë Elena Moldenhauer.