For the Galleries sector of The Armory Show 2022, David Castillo will present a selection of works in painting, collography, photography, and assemblage by gallery artists Belkis Ayón, Lyle Ashton Harris, Quisqueya Henriquez, Pepe Mar, Glexis Novoa, Xaviera Simmons, Shinique Smith, Vaughn Spann and Yesiyu Zhao. In symbolic visual languages that make reference to cultural, academic, and art histories, the represented works contest and convey meaning in highly nuanced terms that challenge established iconographies and forms, calling into question how audiences see, understand, and recall them.

Belkis Ayón Manso was a Cuban artist and collographer whose work was based on Afro-Cuban religion, with a fixation on the myth of Sikan and the traditions of the Abakuá, a men’s secret society. There have been many retrospective exhibitions of the artist’s work over the last several years including recently Belkis Ayón: Collographs at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. Ayón’s work is currently on view in the Venice Biennale 2022: The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, where the artist’s large-scale works introduce the group exhibition in the first gallery of the Arsenale. The artist’s work is in major permanent collections internationally including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, MOCA Los Angeles and many others.

Lyle Ashton Harris’ work is currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami as part of the exhibition, “Fire Figure Fantasy: Selections from the ICA’s Collection” and a new immersive audio-video installation work, Encirculation, is currently on view at the Triennial of Photography Hamburg. The artist’s work is the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The JP Morgan Chase Art Collection and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. Harris lives and works in New York and holds a position as Professor of Art at New York University.

Quisqueya Henriquez works across collage, print, video, installation, and sound. She connaturalizes stereotypes originating in corporeal notions of beauty and critiques of manifest destinies perpetuated by contemporary ideals of cognitive ability, economic achievement, political power, and art history. Henriquez’s work has been exhibited at El Museo del Barrio in New York, The Bronx Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, among others. The artist’s work is currently on view in “Reimagining: New Perspectives” at UBS Art Gallery in New York. Quisqueya Henriquez lives and works in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Pepe Mar was born in Mexico and lives and works in Miami, Florida. The artist excavates the ritual narratives inherent in secondhand stores, science fiction, celebrity, commercial design, and social media to create abstract and anthropomorphic barometers of contemporary culture. Currently on view is “Tesoro, Pepe Mar’s Love Letter to the Frost”, at The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami and “Pepe Mar: Rising Sun”, a site-specific large-scale installation, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. In 2023, the artist will have two museum solo exhibitions, the first at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, and the second, a 15-year career survey exhibition organized by the Tampa Museum of Art, curated by Dr. Joanna Robotham, Ph.D., which will feature a comprehensive overview of the artist’s work and will be accompanied by a scholarly publication.

In his work, Glexis Novoa compiles and decants information codified as symbols and canonic images representative of historical nuclei of power. Novoa has exhibited at the Queens Museum in New York, The Bass Museum, the Havana Biennial, among many other institutions. The artist’s work is in the collections of the Ludwig Foundation, Germany, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, the Shelly and Donald Rubin Collection, among others. Glexis Novoa lives and works in Miami, Florida.

Xaviera Simmons’ body of work spans photography, performance, video, sound, sculpture and installation with a distinct focus on archival research and historical legacies. Simmons’ recent solo exhibitions include Nectar, at Kadist Foundation, Paris. In the Fall of 2022, a major solo exhibition of Simmons’ work, “Crisis Makes a Book Club”, will be on view at the Queens Museum. The artist’s work is in major museum collections such as Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim, ICA Boston, MCA Chicago, de la Cruz Museum, Rubell Museum, UBS and many others.

Shinique Smith simultaneously explores ritual and belonging; Smith’s work creates a visual vocabulary rooted in personal histories, material consumption, and monumental abstractions. Among many recent museum solo exhibitions is Shinique Smith: Stargazers at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Smith’s work has been exhibited at The Brooklyn Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MoMA P.S. 1, and Hauser and Wirth, among many others. Her work is in the permanent collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Rubell Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Library of Congress, among others.

Vaughn Spann received his BFA from Rutgers University and his MFA from Yale School of Art. In a body of work situated at the precipice between personal and collective experience, Vaughn Spann produces distinctly textured paintings and sculptures where form gives way to feeling. Spann’s work is currently on view in museum exhibitions at ICA Miami, de la Cruz Museum, UBS Art Gallery in New York, Rubell Museum, and many others. Vaughn Spann’s work is in the collection of UBS, High Museum, ICA Miami, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Hammer Museum LA, Indianapolis Museum of Art, among many others.

Yesiyu Zhao received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and his MFA from SUNY Purchase. Zhao’s work is currently on view in “There is Always One Direction”, a group exhibition at the de la Cruz Museum, as well as a solo exhibition at David Castillo. Drawing from personal experiences of migration, American and Chinese histories, as well as longstanding societal norms of gendering bodies, the artist’s visual language foregrounds the liberating capacities of art to overturn conventions and celebrate the overlooked. This past Summer, Zhao’s work was featured in the groundbreaking, “At the Table” exhibition and auction, at Christie’s, New York.