The represented works are marked by the language of fragmentation; punctuated in breaches between lines on paper; in splits between materials and meanings; and in the hewn surfaces from which histories readily splinter. Ruptures, and the aesthetics of reconstruction, feature throughout the exhibition: the works are themselves physically cut, collaged, pierced, sewn and shattered, created in acts of fracturing. A duality of conflict and accord plays out across these surfaces, where converging and diverging materials are broken apart and linked together in unity and in opposition.

This exhibition takes its name from Michel Foucault’s “lines of fragility.” This concept is premised on the idea that gaps and fissures eroded on the surfaces of reality can help us to comprehend the conditions of their creation; and, by extension, the past and circumstance of the surface on which this fracture exists. Within this framework, fractures are a consequence, and the tools that bring about a fracture—be they cultural, political or personal; concrete or immaterial—leave evidence of themselves to be found and understood in retrospect.

Sanford Biggers has a long-standing practice of working with antique quilts. He takes apart, collages and paints upon these vernacular materials—objects that are very much of the home and of a time. Harkening to the often uneasy histories that these quilts ignite, Biggers pieces together and reclaims the past to remind us of its place in the present.

Kate Gilmore plays with the vernaculars of manual labor in performative works that tease at the precarious boundaries of bodily exertion and the feminine propriety often forced upon women. In her performances, Gilmore toils with wood, ceramics, rocks and other elements haphazardly, giving way from order to chaos and back again.

Glexis Novoa breaks apart the governing structures of language in a series of paintings that isolate words outside of the confines of grammar and meaning. In Se vende, a blocky typeface hinders the identification of numbers, letters and popular symbols, resulting in an aesthetic and dialectical experience where words are more dominantly form than idea.

Foucault’s lines of fragility are a framework for understanding courses of change and how things that once were have come to be as they are now. This concept brings to bear evidence of disruption, transformation and renewed meaning. Lines of Fracture chooses this strategy and mines the rifts within and between objects, histories, and consequence; in effect fracturing the material of meaning and the meaning of material.