Light of the Guiding Star

Light of the Guiding Star explores the role of the magical and supernatural in the search for a new home. The participating artists and the curator of the exhibition are immigrants who live and make art in societies that are different from their birthplaces. Through artistic and spiritual rituals, carrying their past, they transform the physical and cultural boundaries in their pursuit of freedom of expression. Like magicians, they are navigating between spaces in their studios and our multivalent collective subconsciousness. This generation of artists born in the 1980s and 1990s is not hesitant to follow through the histories of their ancestry, religion, justice, and politics.

This exhibition is part of an ongoing global discourse on immigration and directly engages with the 2024 iteration of the Venice Biennale, titled Foreigners are Everywhere and curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Several artists in the exhibition contributed to various projects at the Venice Biennale, thus establishing an organic continuation across the venues. The New Jersey location of the exhibition adds local context to the global discourse, as the state has the second largest per-capita population of foreign-born residents after California, with 25% of residents amounting to over 2.3 million people, born outside the United States.

There are three main themes in the exhibition: Magical Landscapes, Rituals, and Transformation of Bodies. Visitors are invited to embark on a narrated journey of relocation, beginning with the fabricated environment and continuing with the proposed set of rituals and a collection of relics. We are witnessing artworks derived from creative alchemy, where artists melt their personal experiences, and the transformation yields works that propose new meanings and shapes of known visual symbols. The artworks guide us through the brightly lit sections of the gallery and the dark corridors of night, creating a circle of events in which visitors become participants in the journey. The final part of the exhibition is an investigation of the human body as it undergoes mutations affected by the passage.

The exhibition compares immigration to an expedition with uncertainties and the elements of discovery when people are confronted with unknown cultures and traditions. It addresses questions about our collective memories and perceptions of identity. What is it like to be an immigrant today? How does the displacement affect our cultural formations? What is being lost in the journey, and can we grasp the ephemeral?

Special project of the exhibition includes a public art installation, Portable Garden by Austrian artist Lois Weinberger, installed outside of the Stedman Gallery.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Layo Bright (Born in Nigeria, lives in the U.S.)
Gulnur Mukazhanova (Born in Kazakhstan, lives in Germany)
Natalia Mejía Murillo (Born in Colombia, lives in the U.S., Spain, and Qatar)
Katya Muromtseva (Born in Russia, lives in the U.S.)
Bony Ramirez (Born in the Dominican Republic, lives in the U.S.)
Yao Qingmei (Born in China, lives in France)

Curator: Stass Shpanin (Born in Azerbaijan, lives in the U.S.)
Curatorial Interns: Art History students Caroline Darpino’27
and Charley Harrison Martínez’28.

Image:
Layo Bright
Anarcadium occidentalis (Epo Cashew), 2019
Ghana-Must-Go bag, pottery plaster, gele, pigment, wood, mixed media
Courtesy of the artist and Haley McKay Gallery