Fragment is delighted to present "Tender Split," Josh Rabineau’s first solo exhibition in New York.
Opening reception on June 3rd, from 6 to 8 PM.
The body of work presented in the show seeks to play with and collapse binary notions of being in an attempt to manifest a simultaneous experience of visceral resonance and repulsion, complicating cultural and social norms through uncanny embodiment and disembodiment.
Through a diverse range of materials and fabrication processes, Rabineau blurs the lines between opposing physical and psychological dualities—child/adult, innocent/evil, human/animal, beautiful/grotesque, femme/masc, animate/inanimate, industrial/organic.
Rabineau strives to anthropomorphize and animate familiar objects and corporeal forms, primarily drawing from the aesthetics of childhood, fairy tales, decorative arts, beauty, propaganda, and mythology. He consistently returns to depictions of innocence and purity as starting points for subversive play—from antique cherubs to porcelain tchotchkes of fluttering birds and dozing deer, to miniature collectibles and dollhouses.
Increasingly inspired by child psychoanalysis, Rabineau invokes the aesthetics of childhood to conjure a specific time of innocence, whimsy, and the unknown—a time of inner and outer world-building, but also one of world-learning, indoctrination, and socialization; of awe and magic, but also of terror and anxiety—a stage in life when our understanding of normativity was still inherently porous.