The Contemporary Art Modern Project is pleased to announce the opening of Asking For a Friend, uniting four artists over the age of fifty: Lydia Viscardi, Silvana Soriano, Heidi Hankaniemi, and Joan Wheeler. The exhibition borrows from the familiar mechanism of an advice column—with a twist—using distinct bodies of work to explore questions of love, pride, fear, and autonomy as a form of allyship and emotional community-building.
Friday, March 7th from 6:30-9pm The Contemporary Art Modern Project (CAMP Gallery) is ready to welcome March with two new exhibitions running simultaneously from March 7–April 4, 2025. The gallery will be hosting an opening reception for both exhibitions, all are welcome, this event is Free & Open to the Public. RSVP HERE.
The tradition of an advice column evokes a particular type of desperation, namely to resolve a problem with the guidance of an objective, verified advice-giver. The questions posed in these columns range from the practical to the existential— laundering, gardening, housekeeping, conflict, loneliness, and self-esteem. Is it possible to get blood out of white fabric? How can I improve my relationship with my mother? What should I say to my awful neighbor the next time she says my shoes are ugly? How do I combat the persistent, existential dread coursing through my veins?
Asking For a Friend celebrates the ways in which women take care of one another, explicitly pushing past the woes of a blossoming generation to be inclusive of trans-generational perspectives and experiences. The exhibition functions as a space wherein one can navigate personal and communal hardships: how to grieve; celebrate small victories; find courage; get rich; start over; accept reality; dream.
At the same time, however, this exhibition is a lament for the cultural shift away—not from advice columns in essence, but from communal wisdom toward hyper-independence, isolating entire networks of women from community-oriented practices. Columns of the past featured tips to better one’s housekeeping, sex life, or beauty, and were, admittedly, sometimes perpetuating harmful, gendered cultural attitudes. Nonetheless, the idea of an advice column speaks to an intellectual and spiritual bond between women, especially between women in different stages of life; these relationships do exist for most women, and are often confined to the familial sphere.
Through garments, conceptual textile sculpture, object assemblages, and collaging, this exhibition takes root in a need for considerate and compassionate pathways toward learning. Asking For a Friend invites visitors to step away from doomscrolling, internet rabbit holes, and internal monologues of quiet panic to find sanctuary in shared experience—within communities, within art spaces, and within one another.
Bring a question. Offer it up to the artists, to the curator. We’ll hold it together.
A note from the curator: The CAMP Gallery’s programming for this exhibition will feature submitted queries. Questions you have for each artist will be shared with them; you can keep it anonymous, or share your name.
Statement and curation by Maria Gabriela Di Giammarco.
The Contemporary Art Modern Project also presents Between Stillness and Growth, a solo exhibition showcasing the work of artist Jan Brandt, running from March 7 - April 4. Occupying the gallery’s incubator space, Brandt’s work explores the tension between bloom and decay, inviting viewers to reflect on life’s unpredictable cycles of movement and stagnation.
Brandt’s Hothouse series shifts fluidly from representation to abstraction, as repeated elements unfold into patterns. She infuses her work with a playful, and deeply evocative materiality, through materials such as puffy paint and glitter, creating a dynamic tension where organic forms pulse with life while holding quiet interruptions. Through these textures, Brandt conjures a sense of nostalgia, tapping into child-like wonder and the joy of making while challenging the hierarchy of materials within contemporary art.
In this exhibition, vibrant, maximalist compositions generate a sense of kinetic energy, counterpoised by moments of stillness—pauses in mark-making. By returning to the simplicity of life’s cyclical patterns, Brandt’s works create a space for quiet reflection, offering the viewer comfort in rhythmic repetition. The pauses allow the eyes to rest before drawing them back into the work's unfolding dynamic, reflecting a surrealist life cycle where chaos and calm coexist and invite viewers to slow down, and immerse themselves in the process.
Between Stillness and Growth suggests we embrace the tension before expansion—transition. It also encourages reflection on how this interplay of texture, color, and form evokes feelings of connection, nostalgia, and self-reflection, guiding us through both the turbulence and serenity of the human experience.
Statement and curation by Amy Arechavaleta
