UNTITLED ENERGY, MAK CENTER FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE, LOS ANGELES, CA 2025
VIDEO BY ANNA JERMOLAEWA
VIDEO AND WALL SCULPTURE BY ANNA JERMOLAEWA
Friedman-Pappas’s new series of drawings, I'm Finished, You're Finished, and We're Finished (2025), examine the Wall Street Bombing of 1920 through the perspective of the horse used to pull the wagon full of explosives. The attack, which killed 40, is widely believed to have been carried out by Italian anarchist Mario Buda, although officially speaking the bombing is still unsolved, in part because the body of the horse that pulled the wagon was cleaned up before the police could investigate. The horse’s remains were sent to a factory on nearby Barren Island, which processed them together with other horse carcasses into mattress stuffing, glue, and buttons, absorbing the animal’s body back into the economic system it had been conscripted to assault.
The pieces making up Untitled Energy offer counter-narratives to history that start with the side effects, afterthoughts, and leftovers of events. In this space the unintentional supplants the intention, offering a new look at past events as if through parapraxes. The slips of history’s tongue sometimes tell a surprising story.
THE CEREMONY, PAUL SOTO, NEW YORK, NY 2025
KILN BUILDING 5, SELF-GLAZED KILN AND MIXED MEDIA, 2025
KILN BUILDING 4, SELF-GLAZED KILN AND MIXED MEDIA, 2025
PAINTINGS BY JACOB MASON-MACKLIN AND GRACE ROSARIO
PAINTINGS BY JACOB MASON-MACKLIN AND GRACE ROSARIO
“ I. “Destroying matter’s identity doesn’t destroy it,” SOPHIE-FRIEDMAN PAPPAS writes. The artist is
talking about a horse who tugged an anarchist’s bomb down to the New York stock exchange and
whose exploded limbs were turned to glue. But she’s also talking about, or maybe talking through,
firing a brick in a kiln, a kiln fired so hot it becomes a sculpture itself. Identity stutters like light
flickers through a camera obscura, pulverizing like dust from drywall coming down in commercial
real estate as it’s converted into Airbnbs rentable for any sexual fantasy. Drawn to waste, accident,
and re-appropriation, Friedman-Pappas treats all history as historical fiction destined, like us, for
disappearance.
Friedman-Pappas starts from the residue, remnant, or remainder to generate forms that are not
“final” but both enact and represent a frozen moment of an object’s production. The sculptures in
this exhibition are part of Friedman-Pappas project Buda’s Horse. The elements of the project,
including these two works, sublimate her historical detective work into subjects as seemingly
disparate as: the 1920 Wall Street bombing attributed to Mario Buda; Lacan’s fixation on
upholstery; a single possibly 119-year-old brick fused with plate shards in a San Francisco
historical society that serves as a relic to the Great Fire of 1906; Cycladic dovecotes. The resulting
sculptures combine ceramic, metal grates, magnifying glasses, bricks, and burners into
assemblages that dissolve any distinctions between inside and outside, before and after, or
constructed and demolished. ”
KILN BUILDING 3, SELF-GLAZED KILN AND MIXED MEDIA, 2024
DELTILLE-D WALL’S NECESSARY ANACHRONISM 2, INVERTED CAMERA OBSCURA (HOMEMADE PROJECTOR), MIXED MEDIA,2023
UNTITLED (TRAVELOGUE 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 22, 26, 28, 32), MIXED MEDIA ON PAPER
UNTITLED (TRAVELOGUE 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 22, 26, 28, 32), MIXED MEDIA ON PAPER
EXHIBITION BROCHURE
PRESS ➔
Speculative Tourism from NYC to the DMZ: Sophie Friedman-Pappas and TJ Shin in Conversation with Moira Sims, Boston Art Review
KILN BUILDING QUILTING BUTTON 1 (FAILED, MAX TEMP 1600F), ALTERED DESIGN OF STEVE DAVIS’ FAUX-WOOD-FIRED KILN, MIXED MEDIA,
2023
WALL WORKS BY JASMINE GREGORY (LEFT) AND MARTIN WONG (RIGHT)
UNLIFE: PART II, SOFT OPENING, LONDON, 2024
WALL WORKS BY JASMINE GREGORY (LEFT) AND MARTIN WONG (RIGHT)
UNLIFE: PART II, SOFT OPENING, LONDON, 2024
DELTILLE-D WALL’S NECESSARY ANACHRONISM 1, GRAPHITE, DUCT TAPE, AND BIRD POOP ON KOZO PAPER IN ARTIST FRAME, 2022-2023
PAINTINGS BY MAREN KARLSON
DELTILLE-D WALL’S NECESSARY ANACHRONISM 2, INVERTED CAMERA OBSCURA (HOMEMADE PROJECTOR), MIXED MEDIA, 2023
LINK TO PROJECTED TEXT
LINK TO PROJECTED TEXT
HIDE PILE 3, VEGETABLE-TANNED LEATHER, DUCT TAPE, AND WATERCOLOR, 2022
WE’RE STILL IN THE SAME BUILDING WE JUST KEEP PAINTING IT, DRAWING HOUSE, PARCHMENT, GRAVEL, WATER, CALCIUM OXIDE, EPOXY CLAY, HINGE, AND SILVER LEAF, 2022
UNTITLED, HAND-DYED GOAT PARCHMENT, T-SQUARES, RULER, AND SILVER LEAF, 2022
VIDEOS BY HANNAH BLACK
VIDEOS BY HANNAH BLACK
SOCRATES’ PIGEON HOUSE, TRIANTROS, BARN HOSTED BY SOKRATIS-NIKOS, 2022
GRAPHITE AND PIGMENT ON RABBIT-SKIN PARCHMENT
GRAPHITE AND PIGMENT ON RABBIT-SKIN PARCHMENT
PRESS ➔
Jessica S. Kwok, “The Evolutionary and Revolutionary Thresholds of Hannah Black and Sophie Friedman-Pappas,” Frieze Magazine, 2022
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Jessica S. Kwok, “The Evolutionary and Revolutionary Thresholds of Hannah Black and Sophie Friedman-Pappas,” Frieze Magazine, 2022
STAFFAGE IN THE PIGEON HOUSE AT CLAIRE’S PLACE IN ARTIST FRAME AZO/URINE/HIDE GLUE STAINED, GRAPHITE AND WATERCOLOR ON COTTON RAG PAPER, 2022
HUDSON AND DUANE, GRAPHITE, COLORED PENCIL, AND WATERCOLOR ON PAPER, 2021
SALTED HIDE PILE, URINE-TANNED SHEEP HIDE, SALT, WATERCOLOR, AND WOOD, 2021
SCALE MODEL FIGURE #2, CARVED AND BURNT FOUND WOOD, HIDE GLUE, FOUND PLASTIC BOTTLE, AND SAND, 2020
SPOTTED CAKE TOPPER, TOY STROLLER, BEE, RAWHIDE, ELECTRIC CANDLE, AND TAPE, 2020
THEY SPOKE OF THIS FRUIT WITH GRIMACES OF DISGUST, GRAPHITE, COLORED PENCIL, AND WATERCOLOR ON PAPER, 2020
INTO THE WIND, GRAPHITE, COLORED PENCIL, AND WATERCOLOR ON PAPER, 2020
CITY FULL OF STICKS, GRAPHITE, AND COLORED PENCIL ON PAPER, 2020
CITY FULL OF STICKS 2, BRICK, FOUND OBJECT, AND PLASTIC SEQUIN, 2020
CITY FULL OF SOIL (ONE CHASE MANHATTAN PLAZA), HIDE GLUE, SAND, PHRAGMITES, SAPROPHYTIC FUNGI, PENICILLIUM MOLD, DRIED RAWHIDE, HAND-DUG CLAY, NEW URBAN SOIL, BROKEN DIORAMA, WOOD FROM NOAH’S ARK TOY, PINE ROSIN, AND ARTIFICIAL CAVIAR, 2020-2021
SCALE MODEL FIGURE 1, DOG BONE, FOUND PLASTIC TOY, HIDE GLUE, SAND, AND PRAYING MANTISES, 2020
PRESS ➞
Victoria Campbell, “The Surplus in Being: On Sophie Friedman-Pappas’ post-consumer practice & the xenocology of her Transfer Station solo show at Alyssa Davis,” AQNB, 2021.
Rudy Natazon, “Sophie Friedman-Pappas: Transfer Station,” The Brooklyn Rail, 2021.
QUICK PLUG, AZO URINARY PAIN RELIEF, URINE-TANNED STRIPED BASS LEATHER, PAINT BRUSHES, WOOD TAPE, FOUND OBJECTS, EPOXY CLAY, WATERCOLOR, THREAD, HIDE GLUE, SAND, AND GLAZED STONEWARE, 2021
BROKEN IN PERFECT CIRCLES ORGANIZED FROM THE TOP, URINE-TANNED STRIPED BASS LEATHER, WOOD, TAPE, FOUND OBJECTS, APOXIE SCULPT, WATERCOLOR, THREAD, HAIR, HIDE GLUE, SAND, PHRAGMITES, AND ALUMINUM FOIL, 2021