I Go To Seek A Great Perhaps
Make Room is pleased to present the group exhibition “I Go to Seek a Great Perhaps.” As part of a two-phase exhibition that first opened in March, titled “Unseen Orchestra,” the works in this show explore the macrocosmic aspects of "emergence.” The exhibition features both historical and contemporary artists, including Alice Ningci Jiang, Analia Saban, Christian Quin Newell, Dabin Ahn, Daniel Um, Franz Kline, Joaquin Stacey-Calle, Kate Casanova, Naomi Nakazato, Shana Hoehn, Soumya Netrabile, Taylor Prendergast, Terence Koh, Yassi Mazandi, Yoab Vera, Yongqi Tang, and Yves Klein.
Drawn from François Rabelais's phrase, the exhibition "I Go to Seek a Great Perhaps” encapsulates the exploration and discovery of the unknown alongside the unfolding of complexity from simplicity. Just as Rabelais's pursuit of a “great perhaps” symbolizes a quest for possibilities beyond the known, emergence in systems theory reflects the unpredictable, transformative nature of complex systems evolving from simple beginnings. The exhibition seeks to underscore transformative journeys driven by intellectual curiosity and artists’ desire to explore beyond boundaries through the past and then.
The concept of emergence invites us to contemplate the fundamental nature of reality and our place within it. Challenging us to reconsider the simplistic, reductionist views of the world, the works on display instead urge us to recognize the profound complexity that arises from the interactions of seemingly simple elements. This notion aligns with the philosophical inquiries of thinkers like Heraclitus, who posited that change is the only constant and that the universe remains forever in a state of perpetual becoming.
How do we come to understand the world around us? How do the disparate parts coalesce to form a coherent whole? The exhibition evokes such musings and suggests our understanding of reality is not static but dynamically shaped by the interplay of countless variables—much like individual brushstrokes collectively creating a work. This perspective invites us to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, acknowledging the search for knowledge and meaning is ongoing.
Ultimately, the exploration of emergence in this exhibition invites us to reflect on our own journeys of discovery and transformation. The works challenge us to seek our own "Great Perhaps," to embrace the unknown with curiosity and openness, and to recognize the profound interconnectedness of all things.
Alice Ningci Jiang (b.2003, Beijing, China) is currently studying at New York University, pursuing a BFA in Studio Art, and is estimated to complete her degree in 2026. To complement and nourish her studies in studio art, particularly painting, she has also completed a minor in philosophy at New York University. Jiang’s works have been exhibited in group shows around New York City, including the curatorial collective Loft 121, 80WSE, and gallery spaces within New York University. Jiang’s selected group exhibitions include “Timeless Playground”, Common Gallery, Barney Building, New York, NY, 2023 “Dimly at First”, Loft 121, New York, NY, 2023 “Transversal: Where We Come From and Where We Are Going”, 2023, and 80WSE, New York, NY, 2023. Jiang lives and works in New York, NY.
Analia Saban(born.1980, Argentina) Analia Saban works across mediums, exploring how art objects are constructed and understood. Her work is deeply engaged with the tools of art-making: while she regularly uses traditional materials, she subverts and often combines them with digital technologies to completely rethink how an artwork functions. Saban's work is in the collections of Hammer Museum at UCLA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Getty Research Institute, in Los Angeles; MoMA, Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, and Albright-Knox Art Gallery in New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Blaffer Art Museum and The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio; Mead Art Museum in Amherst; ; Norton Museum of Art in Florida; MALBA in Buenos Aires; The Israel Museum in Jerusalem; National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; Centre Pompidou in Paris; among many others.
Christian Quin Newell (b.1991, Latisana, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy) Recent solo exhibitions include The Way, Public Gallery, London, UK (2024); Siena, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2022); Earth Altar, Public Gallery, London (2021); and Apotheosis, WT Foundation, Kyiv (2021). His work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at Marlborough Gallery, London (2023); Sargent’s Daughters, New York (2023); Palazzo Monti, Brescia (2023); Public Gallery, London (2022); GRIMM Gallery, New York (2022); New York Studio School, New York (2021); ADZ Gallery, Lisbon (2021); CANADA, New York (2021); and The Drawing Center, New York (2020). Newell has participated in residencies including Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy; The Fores Project, London, UK and the WT Foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine. His work is part of the permanent collections of the X Museum, Beijing, China; Sixi Museum, Nanjing, China; and Recharge Foundation, New York, NY, USA. Newell lives and works in London, UK.
Dabin Ahn (b.1988, Seoul, Korea) received a BFA (2017) and an MFA (2020) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ahn’s recent solo exhibitions include Silent Whisper, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY, 2024; Staged, Ochi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2023; 1st Dibs, Artruss, Chicago, IL, 2023; ONE-OFF, Shatto Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2022; Liminal Fictions, Selenas Mountain, Ridgewood, NY, 2021; and Apocrypha, Chicago Manual Style, Chicago, IL, 2020. Selected group exhibitions include 36 Paintings, Harper’s, East Hampton, NY, 2024; Serenity of Less, RHAA, Chicago, IL, 2023; Focal Point, Long Story Short, New York, NY, 2023; BIG OBJECTS, Marvin Gardens, Ridgewood, NY, 2023; Storage Wars, The Hole, Los Angeles, CA, 2023; Composition and Layout, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL, 2022; Best Practices, Edgewood College Gallery, Madison, WI, 2022; The Ground Floor Biennial, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, 2020; and The Green Gallery Works, The Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, 2020. Ahn’s work has appeared in Chicago Magazine, Korea Times, and Chicago Gallery News. Ahn lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Daniel Um (b 2001, Seoul, South Korea) is a Korean American artist based in New York City. Primarily working with oil paints, Um interweaves the space between wakefulness and sleep drawing from both his personal history and an imaginative inner world. Despite the vivid colors and fantastical compositions, the artist focuses on fragments of his life that reside in themes of desolation and states of refuge. Um tells the story through his streams of consciousness, letting the rhythm of his emotions dictate the pace of the painting. For Um, it is both an additive and reductive process resulting in multiple layers of history leaving traces of regret and realization. The synthesis of chance and intention in Um’s paintings thus creates ample room for the viewer to fill in the gaps of meaning. Recent solo exhibitions include “Trails Left by the Moonlight” at Linseed Projects, Shanghai, CN, 2024 and “Lullaby” at Turn Gallery, New York, NY, 2024. He has participated in group exhibitions at Scroll NYC, New York, NY, 2024 ; Turn Gallery, New York, NY, 2023; Galerie Hussenot, Paris, FR, 2022; Long Story Short, New York, NY, 2022 and Hew Hood Gallery, London, UK, 2022.
Franz Kline (1910-1962, Wilkes-Barre, PA) is an American Abstract Expressionist best known for large black and white paintings bearing abstract motifs set down with strident confidence. He started out as a realist with a fluent style that he perfected during an academic training that encouraged him to admire Old Masters such as Rembrandt. But after settling in New York and meeting Willem de Kooning, he began to evolve his signature abstract approach. By the end of his life he had achieved immense international recognition, and his unusual approach to gestural abstraction was beginning to influence the ideas of many Minimalists.
Joaquín Stacey-Calle (b 2000 Quito, Ecuador) develops conversations around history, identity, memory, representational and landscape painting, daily rituals, Western ontology, and the human condition. They are interested in the digestion and fermentation of their quotidian surroundings and the cultural productions they have consumed throughout his life. Lately, he has been exploring the importance of forgetting, confusion, and ignorance concerning the definition of thought. Stacey-Calle received their BFA in Painting from Florida International University in Miami, Florida in 2022 and MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California in 2024. The artist’s selected solo exhibitions include, Fermenting Myselves, Proxy Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2024 Delicadeza Óptica; Cada Vez Que Te Hablo Estamos Cocinando, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2024 This Year Now Has 367 Days, Bolsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2024 Tropismo del Paisaje, Mey Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2023 We’re here, pero allá también, The Laundromat Art Complex, Miami, FL, 2022 Un Recuerdo que no viví, Vigil Gonzalez, Cusco, Perú, 2022. Stacey-Calle lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Kate Casanova (b.1982, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an artist who creates hyper-tactile sculptures that challenge conventional ideas about the body. Casanova has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as the Black Cube Nomadic Museum (Denver), the Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis) and Doug Aitken's Station to Station, an exhibition that traveled by train from New York to California. Casanova is represented by Yi Gallery (Brooklyn) and Myta Sayo Gallery (Toronto). She received a Master’s of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota in 2013 and a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design in 2008 and serves as Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Denver. Casanova lives and works in Denver, CO.
Naomi Nakazato (b.1992, Arlington, VA) is a Japanese-American, multidisciplinary artist whose predominately materials-based practice surveys the conglomerate landscape of memory, language, and the artificial authenticity of the biracial experience. Her work utilizes semiotics and syntactic intervention of natural objects to examine the weight of authenticity and articulate belonging. Nakazato holds a BA in Painting and Drawing from the South Carolina School of the Arts and an MFA in Painting from the New York Academy of Art. Her recent work and installations have been exhibited at Olympia (NY), Below Grand (NY), NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), Galerie Tracanelli (Grenoble, FR), and PADA (Barreiro, PT). She is the recipient of grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Print Center New York, FST Studio Projects Funds, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. Nakazato lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Shana Hoehn (b.1991, Texarkana, Texas) calls attention to Western oppressive gender norms by inverting viewers’ expectations of common symbols. Many of her works mimic an arched back, drawing on the way this position appears in cheerleading, horror films, weapon decorations, and on the hood ornaments of classic cars.. Drawing from her personal and historical research, Hoehn transforms found objects, wood, and metal through traditional and digital fabrication techniques. Hoehn received her MFA from the Virginia Commonwealth University in Sculpture and Extended Media and earned a BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has been the subject of solo and two- person exhibitions at Jack Barrett Gallery, New York City, NY ( 2023);Frieze LA with Make Room, Los Angeles, CA ( 2023); Prairie, Chicago, IL( 2023); Make Room Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA ( 2022); Art Pace, SanAntonio, TX ( 2022); Euqinom Gallery, San Francisco, CA ( 2021), among others. Recent group exhibitions include Strong Winds Ahead at Ghebaly Gallery; Machines of Desire at Simon Lee Gallery, London ( 2022); CaredFor at The Blaffer Museum in Houston ( 2022); Slowed and Throwed atthe Contemporary Art Museum, Houston ( 2020- 21); PrescribedLiberalism at P. Bibeau, New York ( 2022), among others. Hoehn' s work has received notable coverage in publications including Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, and ARTnews, among others.
Soumya Netrabile (b.1966, Bangalore, India) received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Andrew Rafacz, Chicago, IL; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA; Gana Art, Seoul, Korea; Pt.2 Gallery, Oakland, CA; and The Journal, New York, NY. Netrabile has exhibited in group exhibitions at galleries including Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA; Rachel Uffner, New York, NY; Trinta Gallery, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Indigo + Madder, London, UK; and Karma, New York, NY. Netrabile’s work has been acquired by public collections including Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; and University Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Netrabile lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Taylor Marie Prendergast (b.1990, San Diego, California) is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist who works in painting, drawing, video and performance. Born and raised in Southern California, she studied at CalArts (2013) and the San Francisco Art Institute (2012). Prendergast is mostly known for her monochromatic palette, vigorous gesture, and direct depictions of her subjects. Prendergast lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Terence Koh (b.1977, Beijing, China) Koh grew up in Mississauga, Canada, and he received his Bachelor degree from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. In 2008, Koh was listed in Out magazine’s “100 People of the Year '', and was shortlisted for the SOBEY awards. Terence Koh's works carve out a realm where memory and imagination intertwine with art history and subculture. He investigates a wide array of topics, including mythology, religion, identity, power, fashion, and sexuality, frequently in a provocative and intense manner. Terrence Koh’s works is in the collections of Altoids Collection; Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; The Boros Collection, Berlin, Germany; Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens; Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; The Domus Collection, Beijing, China; Frank Cohen Collection, UK; Hobart Museum, Tehran, Iran; The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Contemporary Drawing Collection; Jumex Collection, Mexico; MUDAM, Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-Due Jean, Luxembourg; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; MUSAC, León, Spain; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; RISD Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Collection, Providence, RI; Tate Modern, London, UK; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels, Belgium, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Koh lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Yassi Mazandi (b.1962, Tehran, Iran) She describes nature and her reaction to it, both conscious and subconscious, as the driving forces behind her art. She sculpts in porcelain, clay and bronze, and also creates works on paper and canvas. She enjoys expanding her creative frontiers with constant experimentation, including the combination of traditional hand-intensive skills with the most relevant technological innovations. In 2019, she completed her first video artwork and, in 2021, her first NFT as well as her first AR artwork. Her work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, numerous group exhibitions,as well as a video interview with the BBC in 2013. In 2012, she was in the first group selected by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for its Artist in Residence program on Captiva Island in Florida. Her work is in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, University of California and in other public and major private collections both in the United States and internationally.
Yoab Vera (b.1985, Mexico) He holds an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of California, Los Angeles (2021), and a BA in art and art history with a concentration in modern and contemporary Latin American art from Hunter College, New York (2013). His selected solo and duo exhibitions include Circadian Memories: Amar Pacifico, Make Room, Los Angeles (2023); Robert Janitz & Yoab Vera, Saenger Galería, Mexico City (2023); and the everyday in memory, with Hea-Mi Kim, The Alice and Nahum Lainer Family Gallery, UCLA Margo Leavin Graduate Art Studios, Los Angeles (2022). His work has been shown in international group shows, including at Art SG, with Make Room LA, Singapore (2023); Way Home, China – Latin American Art Consortium, Shanghai (2022); and Light Touch, LA Dreams, CFHILL, Stockholm (2022). Vera’s works are included in private collections in Asia, Europe and the USA as well as in the permanent collection of institutions AMOCA, Wales; and X Museum, Beijing. Recently, he exhibited a solo exhibition at Luis Barragán’s Casa Gilardi in February 2024.
Yongqi Tang (b.1997, Shenzhen, China) lives and works in Seattle, WA. She received her MFA in Painting and Drawing (2022), her BA in Painting and Drawing (2019) from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Recent solo exhibitions have been mounted at Le Scalze, Naples; Jupiter Contemporary in Miami, FL; and T293 Gallery in Rome, Italy. She has also been exhibited in numerous group shows such as A Happy Beginning and Cruel Spring at Latitude Gallery in NY; David Zwirner’s Platform Online Viewing Room; Culture II at Strada World in NY. She is the recipient of the Artist Trust GAP Award (2023), Bernie Funk Artist Scholarship (2022), the Puget Sound Group of Northwest Artists Scholarship Award (2022), and one of the 2023 artists-in-residence at Amazon AIR Program. Her art has been covered in numerous outlets, including New American Paintings, Whitehot Magazine, Booooooom, Art Maze Mag. Tang lives and works in Seattle, WA.
Yves Klein (1928-1962, Nice, France) French artist chiefly noted for his blue monochrome paintings and for his audacious experiments with new techniques and new attitudes to art. Born in Nice; both his parents were painters. Began to paint in the late 1940s and formulated his first monochrome theories. Lived in Japan 1952-3. Became expert at judo, which he later taught in Spain and in Paris, where he lived from 1955. First public one-man exhibition at the Galerie des Solitaires, Paris, 1955. Early monochrome pictures in orange, yellow, pink, red and green, but from 1957 worked mainly in blue; also made from 1960 a number of monogolds, with gold leaf. Murals for the opera house at Gelsenkirchen 1957-9. Began in 1957 to experiment with fire paintings and 'immaterial zones of sensibility', and in 1958 with 'Anthropométries' made by a nude model pressing herself against the canvas under his direction. Member of the group Nouveaux Réalistes with Arman, Raysse, Spoerri, Tinguely, Pierre Restany and others 1960. Died in Paris of a heart attack, at the age of 34.