Art Basel Miami Beach

For the 2023 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to present a selection of works by Melissa Cody, Howardena Pindell, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Emmi Whitehorse, and Franklin Williams. It is the first time the gallery will present the work of Franklin Williams.

In the early ’70s, Howardena Pindell began spraying paint onto canvases through hole-punched cardstock, forming layers of vibrant dots—a technique resulting in a sensuous interplay between background and foreground. In recent years, Pindell revisited the technique for the first time in over three decades. The artist’s Tesseract series combines the staggering fluctuations of light and color that are characteristic of the spray-dot works with Platonic geometric shapes. In Tesseract #11 (2023), light radiates from the center of the painting, revealing elemental forms that appear like celestial bodies or microbiota. The presentation will also include Pindell’s Untitled #25 (For a Rabbit Named Pink) (2023)—an expanse of pale pink that ruptures, revealing a tenuous substrate of thin vertical canvas strips. The composition is punctuated with vibrant dots of primary color. The painting vacillates between mono- and polychromy; its near-square boundaries fray and warp according to the material whims of the canvas fibers.

The exhibition traces the development of Emmi Whitehorse’s work from the late ’80s to today. Over time, Whitehorse’s more concrete forms dematerialized within an increasingly ephemeral substrate. Her intimate and intuitive compositions make conscious reference to the Navajo philosophy Hózhó—seeking harmony in life, mind, body, and nature. While light and meditative, the works are animated by abstract gestural marks that organize vaporous fields of color.

A series of new works by Franklin Williams displays the artist’s idiosyncratic, constantly evolving style. From the ’60s onward, his work has been foundational to a number of movements, including Nut Art and the Pattern and Decoration movement. Williams new works draw on these historical elements, introducing woven elements that create vivid tactility. Strands of yarn stitch the painted surfaces as biological tissue, protruding like thick strands of hair.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s selection will draw from the artist’s recent work, including the monumental Trade Canoe: Wonderland (2023), measuring over 22 feet in width. The powerful sculpture Fear of Knowledge (2023) will also feature: a canoe-shaped frame cradles a pile of books that have been banned in school districts and libraries across the United States. Perched atop is a raven—a bird with potent symbolism in many cultures.

Fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa Cody creates intricate tapestries that are often associated with the Germantown Revival—a stylistic movement named after the vividly-dyed government wool from Germantown, Pennsylvania, that was supplied to the Navajo during the time of the Long Walk. The weaving style was born of a complex interaction of traditional and historical contingencies. Scaling the Caverns (2023) carries that balance of tradition, history, and contemporaneity forward. Navajo patterns are recombined into sophisticated geometric overlays and haptic color schemes. Cody has often mentioned the formative visual influence of the 1980s video games with which she grew up; in this instance, her work is literally digitally mediated before being woven on a Jacquard machine. For Cody—as for Smith and Whitehorse—the very act of creating abstract contemporary art is a rejection of the persistent historicization of Native Americans. Notably, Scaling the Caverns is an artist proof from a new series of Jacquard works that are currently on view in the Hammer Museum’s biennial exhibition Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living.

Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to represent Melissa Cody, Howardena Pindell, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Emmi Whitehorse, and Franklin Williams.