All historical objects are fetishes - Merleau-Ponty.

There is a perpetual feeling of wanting, a sort of haunting bound to unnamed desires that renders foundational constructs in the development of identities and notions of self. This unspoken, constant phenomenon of longing epitomizes a collective human loneliness driven by one’s perception of being chronically incomplete. All through life, our existence is unweaved into other peoples, places, things; dripping away particles of us that we unequivocally leave behind. Yet, no matter how thin and far apart the thread of remembrance is stretched, we still feel a form of phantom connection to those lost pieces of us, as if they were still entangled within.

In quantum mechanics, it is possible to observe a similar paradox regarding the strange property of a link between a pair of particles that is so intense they share the same existence. Albert Einstein called it “spooky actions at a distance” in the 1930s.

Entanglements cover the multiple dimensions of links that constitute an extraordinary, obsessive relationship between two things – from nano levels of mysterious connections, to fragmented pieces of identities that we desperately hunger for – as a means to achieve idealizing wholesomeness.

This group exhibition embodies different forms of desire and its unintended consequences by taking on a Lacanian perspective on the conception of the fetish object. Historically, the term fetish was utilized to describe sacred objects that are imbued with greater powers beyond its material compositional form.

Entanglements situate the viewer in a visceral voyeuristic state, being confronted back by the object of art and agglutinating two separate existences, becoming one with desire. By embracing blooming fetishes from a spiritual lens, the works on view set the stage for surrendering oneself to interpretations of the arcane attractions in concealed interdependencies.

Tao Siqi’s delicate paintings reveal through fever-dream lights the intimacy of connection in love-binding amplifications of sexuality creating dichotomic impressions of desire, delight, and destruction. Cindy Hill’s powerful objects allude to bodily sensations from a female perspective, remodeling pleasure to ungendered and unsuppressed public spheres.

The works of Zorica Čolić take on a critical interpretation of desire, considering the commodification of the fetish and the capitalization around the chronic pursuit of completion broadcasted in western popular culture as a purchasable state of being. Rosalie Smith’s “creatures” are precisely a composition of undesired objects found in the outskirts of private domesticity, combined they are reborn in one, unexpectedly entangled to one another.

Leandra Espirito-Santo dwells on the repetition quality of the fetish as a liminal force in the spectrum of desire, an exploration equally present in the paintings of Olivia Drusin that remind us on how the intensity of certain connections can only be measured in quantum mechanics by considering the total amount of energy in a system, the object and its environment.

Entanglements vindicate desire through unmeasurable quantum systems, subverting traditional conceptions of love and self-love in relationship to commodified feelings, offered as a lexicon for filling the void of existence while reclaiming an ethereal meditation on the physicality of attraction.

– Thais Bignardi Engstrom

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Zorica Čolić (1977, Šabac, Serbia) is a visual artist and educator, born in Serbia and based in New York City. Working across video, sound, text, found materials, and installation, she explores issues around the human body as a cultural symptom, examining how health and well-being intersect with politics, gender, sexuality, ideology, and the economy. Čolić is currently an artist-in-residence at Harvestworks, commissioned to develop a project in its TEAM (Technology, Engineering, Art, and Music) Lab. Her past residencies include the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, SOMA Summer (Mexico City), the Institute for Electronic Arts (Alfred, NY), and the International Summer Academy Salzburg, among others. In 2023, she was awarded a NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellowship in Digital/Electronic Arts. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including institutions in New York such as Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, Microscope Gallery, Anthology Film Archives, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, WhiteBox, and in Europe: Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig (Germany), The Energy Museum of Santralistanbul (Turkey), the Museum of Yugoslav History (Serbia), to name a few. Her video installation Interval is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Serbia. Čolić holds an M.F.A. in Electronic Integrated Arts from Alfred University and a B.F.A. in Painting from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. In addition to her studio practice, she curates screenings and writes about media and art.


Rosalie Smith (b.1993 Blacksburg, VA) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with found materials. Her sculptures imagine a post-human world in which the 99% of us have devolved into growths upon piles of often tech related trash, after the 1% have jetted to Mars. Smith depicts an unsexy singularity between humans and technology, i.e. microplastics magnified to microplastics, like an old phone receiver grafted into flesh. With a whimsical, absurdist tilt, her sculptures are inspired by the notion of navigating ecological crises with assemblage gadgets and vehicles. Her work has been shown internationally, notably including venues such as NADA Curated, Pulse Projects x The Met, Spring Break, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, The Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), Southeastern Louisiana University, and the Carroll Gallery of Tulane University. Her work has been written about in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Burnaway, and WhiteHot, among other publications. She has forthcoming exhibitions at MAMA projects, VSOProjects, Upstate Art Weekend curated by Anne-Laure Lemaitre, and The Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles, among others. She finished her MFA at CUNY Hunter in May.


Olivia Drusin (b.1994, New York, USA, she/her) is a New York-based painter whose works critically engage with the psychological dimensions of public and private spaces through a perceptual lens. Her work meticulously dissects the banalities of everyday life, exposing the latent disquietude that permeates seemingly mundane encounters. Drusin's paintings traverse the intersection of the ordinary and the uncanny, manifesting as stark, reductive representations of thresholds and obscured moments that invite a deeper contemplation of the intersections between sight, space, and psychological engagement. Drusin received her MFA from Columbia University in 2024 and her BFA from The Cooper Union in 2016. She has exhibited widely, with recent exhibitions including Landscapes of Fear at International Waters, Brooklyn; Currents at SK Gallery, New York; All Our Puny Sorrows at Pablo’s Birthday, New York; High-Stakes in Paris, France; Too Long at the Fair at Galleri Golsa, Oslo; and Painting As Is II at Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York. Her work has also been presented at the Wallach Art Gallery, International Objects and Abattoir Gallery, among others.


Leandra Espírito-Santo (b.1983, Volta Redonda, Brazil) is a visual artist based in São Paulo, Brazil. She works cross multiple languages and media, exploring the intersections between the gesture and the form. Her research is characterized by the transformation of gestures in sculptures, machines performing actions and videos that, through stop-motion, return to its photographic origins. The centrality of the process is fundamental in her practice, exploring dynamics, displacement, and movement of both body and image. Espirito-Santo investigates the effects of industrial processes in cultural formations, utilizing materials that reflect this perspective and embody repetition as well as modularity in her formal constructions. She focuses on the impact of new technologies on the individual, utilizing her own body and other individuals’ as well as a model. In her works, such as the facial expressions of the masks and hand gesture series, Espirito-Santo explores the relationship between the body and technology, challenging the fragmented experience of bodies in virtual environments. Recent exhibitions include “Disponível” at the Museu de Arte Contemporanea (MAC) in Niteroi, Brasil (2023), “Só existo em terceira pessoa” at the Teatro Polytheama em Jundiaí (2019) and “Incubadora” at the Centro Cultural Paschoal Carlos Magno in Niteroi (2014). She participated in the 13th Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre (2022) and the 18th International Meeting of Art and Technology in Lisbon (2019). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions such as “Domino” at Casa Luz in Sao Paulo (2019) and “Agora somos mais de mil” at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro (2016). Leandra’s works are in both Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) and Pinacoteca Municipal de Jundiai’s collections.


Cindy Hill (b. 1993, Montreal, Canada) is an artist based in Montreal, Canada. Her work uses found objects and textiles to examine the relationship between design aesthetics and perceptions of the body. Hill reflects on the history of health and sexuality amongst women, re-contextualizing objects used to treat and care for the body. Engaging with themes of intimacy, care, and desire, she draws from personal experiences to explore the complexities of bodily and feminist discourses. Hill holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and a BFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University. She has also studied at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia. She has completed a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada) and at the London Summer Intensive hosted by the Camden Art Center and the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in London (UK). Recent exhibitions include A bell I never hear at Centre Clark, Montreal (Canada), Please be gentle at The plumb in Toronto (Canada), Veils of Myth at Wick Gallery in Brooklyn (NY). In 2022 she was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Brooklyn (NY) through the support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.


Tao Siqi (b. 1994, Wuhan Hubei province, China) is an artist based in Shanghai, China. Her paintings are rooted in her fascination with the body and flesh as a medium of sensibility and sexuality. She delves into desire of all forms through her intense colors, delicate brushstrokes and characteristic close-up perspective. By creating a tension between beauty and destruction, tenderness and violence, temptation and taboo, her surreal scenes inspire a provocative viewing experience and conjure emotional unease, flickering between pleasure and pain. She graduated from Hubei Institute of Fine Art with a BA in painting in 2016. Her solo exhibitions include "Trembling" at Fortnight Institute (New York, USA, 2022), "Deep Water" at Clima (Milan, Italy, 2022), "Tender Thorns" at Capsule Shanghai (Sha in nghai, China, 2021) and "Transient" at chi K11 Art Space (Wuhan, China, 2015). Her group exhibitions include "Games People Play" (Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, USA, 2024), "Deep! Down! Inside!" (Hales  Gallery, New York, USA, 2023) , "F*ck Art: The Body & Its Absence" (Museum of Sex, New York, USA, 2022), "Notes on Ecstatic Unity" (OTP Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2022), "Mouthed Echoes" (Lyles & King, New York, USA, 2022), "Indoor Weather", curated by Lu Xiangyi and Wang Shiying (Light Palette Through Time and Space - 2022 Caochangdi Young Artists Group Exhibition, Beijing, China, 2022), "Nine Lives" (Fortnight Institute, New York, USA, 2021), "IMPORT-EXPORT" (Import Export Project, Locarno, Switzerland, 2019), "Right Behind Your Eyes", curated by Sarah Faux (Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai, China, 2019), "The Apple Incident" (Dream Co., Beijing, China, 2018), "On Drawing: Visibility of Power" curated by Lu Mingjun (J: Gallery, Shanghai, China, 2017) and "Chūn rì dì xìan" (RS_PROJECTS, Wuhan, China, 2016) among others.