Sun Rises Sun Sets by Dora Economou and Katfish by Ellen Gallagher is counterpart of an exhibition that opened in Rotterdam earlier in September 2021. It is co-curated with Shimmer’s Eloise Sweetman and Jason Hendrik Hansma, and forms part of their exhibition series World as Lover, World as Self inspired by the writings of environmental activist and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy, and in particular Macy’s 1991 book of the same title.

Gallagher strips Katfish’s two panels from some three thousand strips of the celebrated serialized comic Krazy Kat by George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944 in the New York Evening Journal. In keeping with Herriman’s method of having the backdrop in a continual state of agitation, Gallagher has shifted the panels from the printed page to the wall. In the attitude of a contortionist, scrubbed-down plaster becomes the blank space behind Herriman’s characters; it is there they must set.

Lain supine, afloor in the front room: four swells. Dora Economou’s Sun Rises Sun Sets, drawings of the sun rising and setting across the horizon are inundated in fabric covering a soft expanse on the floorboards. Colored lines of light appear unwavered from a distance, but quiver from up close. Sunrises are dialled to face East; Sunsets West.

The exhibition is taking place with the support of NEON.