Softer, Softest – “Curated by Eames Armstrong, Softer, Softest explores the condition of softness: the digital “soft” and the sculptural soft”

“Aether Art Projects at Delicious Spectacle:

Aether Art Projects at Delicious Spectacle
1366 Quincy St, NW, Washington, DC
May 30 – June 21

opening reception Friday, May 30, 7 – 10pm
performances Saturday, June 7, doors 7:30, performances 8pm
closing reception Thursday, June 19, 7 – 9pm

exhibiting artists: Megan Blafas, Rania Hassan, Matt Hollis, Leslie McConnaughey, Rene Medrano, Ziad Nagy, Cory Oberndorfer, John Paradiso, Jane Claire Remick, and Jade Yumang (Vancouver)
June 7 performances: Anya Liftig (NY), Matthew Ryan Rossetti (NY), Hoesy Corona (Baltimore)
curated by Eames Armstrong

There is a tag/movement in the tumblr world; you find variations of it tacked on to thousands of posts- “soft grunge blog, follows back similar.” There are cycles of images participating in an aesthetic of softness, of nostalgia and teen dream sadness. Softer, Softest explores the condition of softness: the digital “soft” and the sculptural soft.

When I was around six years old, I saw a Claes Oldenburg soft ice cream cone at a museum. I connected with it immediately. I realized at that moment that sometimes the most playful work was really the most complex in its subtle simplicity. Likewise, much of the imagery circulating through tumblr upholds minimalism, but is cut through with wit and references to performativity.
The third track on the 1994 Hole album, Live Through This, (the album which was released just four days after the death of Courtney Love’s husband Kurt Cobain) is called Softer, Softest. I’ve always been struck by the line, “I’ve got a blister from touching everything I see.” This line speaks to the conflict of the body and its surroundings, between sight and touch, desire and materiality. Softer, Softest is an exhibition on being soft. Examining what it is to be pliable, or easily molded. To be pleasing to touch, not harshly defined.

– Eames Armstrong”