- Charlotte Youkilis
This exhibition presents works by Madeline Gins (1941–2014), an artist and writer whose practice tested the limits of human cognition and sensory perception. Gins is perhaps best known for her decades-long collaboration with her husband, Shusaku Arakawa, under the moniker Arakawa+Gins. Together, the duo employed architecture to reverse the process of human aging and defy death, establishing the Reversible Destiny Foundation. At the same time, Gins developed her own forward-thinking body of work that traverses visual art, performance, poetry, film, and scientific research. Focusing on her independent practice, which is lesser known and rarely seen, the exhibition reveals Gins’s distinct legacy as a groundbreaking artist who refused to be constrained by the bounds of reality.
Infinite Systems—the first solo presentation on Gins—showcases a constellation of her writing and visual works from the 1960s to the 2000s, many of which are being exhibited for the first time, alongside archival materials, including ephemera, manuscripts, and photographs drawn from the Reversible Destiny Foundation.
Gins uses language and wordplay to disorient the viewer, encouraging a loss of cognitive balance. Her paintings and drawings are sparsely populated with fantastical elements: biomorphic shapes, disembodied sensory organs, and dream-like vignettes. Her book What the President Will Say and Do!! (1984) issues anti-rational imperatives like “LOWER THE BIRTH AGE” and “VERTEBRA TO OPERATE AS ESCALATORS!” Her experimental writing and performance art complicate the act of reading and challenge the conventions of language. The exhibited works reveal Gins’s enduring provocation: to radically stretch the bounds of consciousness, paving the way for new modes of thinking.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with original contributions by Susan Bee, Lucy Ives, Tausif Noor, and Aviva Silverman.
Madeline Gins: Infinite Systems is supported by The Jenni Crain Foundation, an initiative dedicated to preserving the legacy of the esteemed artist and curator.
