As its title suggest, arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified: Chapter Eight is two things at once: a group exhibition featuring longtime collaborators and an exploration of the art collective fierce pussy.
Structurally, it’s more the former. With one exception, the works represent the individual practices of the core collective members. The outlier is a fierce pussy poster, which visitors are welcomed to take, printed with the line “I got all my sisters with me” from Sister Sledge’s 1979 disco anthem “We Are Family.” The only didactic work in an otherwise dense conceptual show, it’s a nod to the group’s history and activism: They formed in 1991 to take lesbian identity to the streets with interventions like wheat-pasting posters around New York City, renaming streets after lesbian icons, and distributing materials including greeting cards and stickers.
The exhibition was conceived by curator Jo-ey Tang to put the artists’ solo practices in dialogue. A handout identifies the artworks, but there are no wall labels, so viewers can wander the show without always knowing who made what (as I did, deliberately). As a result, something curious happens: fierce pussy is amplified, not as an activist group but as friends, partners, and creative collaborators.
The show is composed of pieces that resonate with one another visually and texturally: The mostly beige textiles that form Joy Episalla’s “removed: 5 skins” (2001/2018/2024/2025) might look at first like scraps someone left on the concrete floor, but the sculptural sheet of clear, yellowing resin in Carrie Yamaoka’s nearby “Overlay” (2024) brings out their folds and color variations, and vice versa. Likewise, Yamaoka’s abstract mixed-media work “14 by 11 (flake.swell)” (2024) draws attention to the formal qualities of Zoe Leonard’s photograph “Tree + Fence, Out My Back Window” (1998), while the latter coaxes potential figurative readings in the former. A similar dynamic unfolds between Yamaoka’s “Stump 3” (2024), a digital print of a tree stump on fabric draped over a wood panel, and Episalla’s “foldtogram (chromo white/blue, winter 40’ x 50”)” (2025), which reminded me of a giant, crumpled metallic food wrapper.
Hypnotic optical paintings of a cheesecloth-like pattern by the late Brody (to whom the show is dedicated) allude to the mutability of perception in the show. The shared title — “Glory Hole, (vibgyor)” — articulates queerness as a presence in the two pieces: “vibgyor” is a mnemonic device for memorizing the optical spectrum, or the colors of the rainbow. The presence echoes throughout the show in the way that some works can denaturalize, or queer, superficial readings of others.
This is not to say that the works act as keys to each other. arms ache avid aeon brought to mind a recent show that Yamaoka curated, Exposure at Ulterior Gallery. In her Hyperallergic review, Alexis Clements noted that “Artists aren’t obligated to spoon feed audiences, but it’s a choice to present work that turns in on itself.” This show definitely does not spoon feed its audience, but it creates a cohesive sensibility that is all the more meaningful because of the human relationships that underlie its formal relationships. Bound together by the collective’s poster, the show presents fierce pussy not out on the streets, but in a more private realm communing with one another, like family.
arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified: Chapter Eight continues at Participant Inc (116 Elizabeth Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through May 11. The exhibition was curated by Jo-ey Tang.