Bold works for a bold new space. Bianca Nemelc seems like the perfect choice to open the new Hashimoto Contemporary space on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. The gallery has had a space in the neighborhood for years, but as they have grown, and their roster too, it seems apt to start spring 2022 with Bianca and a new look at 54 Ludlow. What Bianca’s work has done in the past and now with Austral Summer is create both a figure and an abstraction in landscapes, and sometimes now, in a fantasy of clouds and color blocks. What appears like a body slowly becomes a wave of sky or tropical bliss, taking the meaning of austral and transforming it into mood and feeling, and political weight. 

“I’m currently really interested in bridging a connection between brown bodies and a continent that is devoid of governance, and seemingly neutral in the global history of colonialism,” Nemelc says. “How can we see ourselves in this uninhabitable space? How do we find connection and belonging in places we don’t feel we belong and how do we advocate for these same spaces, because our existence is dependent on it?”

Please join Hashimoto on Saturday, April 16th at 54 Ludlow Street from 4pm to 8pm for the opening of Austral Summer. The artist will be in attendance.

Hashimoto Contemporary 54 Ludlow Street
New York, NY 10002