The Burning Kite, Curated by Dolly Bross Geary, Michelle Y. Loh, and Kristen Lorello

June 16 - July 25, 2021

As the three organizers began their collaboration, they discovered emotional and philosophical resonance in a poem by a member of a group of Chinese writers referred to as the Misty Poets.

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The poem “The Burning Kite” by Ouyang Jianghe served as a guide as they chose the artists for the exhibition.

The poem speaks with a kind of ironic toughness, distrustful of consoling illusions.  The works in this group explore uplifting feelings and the freedom to create, while at the same time acknowledge the difficulty of letting go; a mood of the times.  Ouyang’s poem offers a way to process this moment of living during the pandemic; to reflect not only on what has been lost, but also on what has been given and transformed during this past year.

Ouyang Jianghe
The Burning Kite
Translated from the Chinese by Austin Woerner

What a thing it would be, if we all could fly.
But to rise on air does not make you a bird.

I’m sick of the hiss of champagne bubbles.
It’s spring, and everyone’s got something to puke.

The things we puke: flights of stairs,
a skyscraper soaring from the gut,

 the bills blow by on the April breeze
followed by flurries of razor blades in May. 

It’s true, a free life is made of words.
You can crumple it, toss it in the trash, 

or fold it between the bodies of angels, attaining
a permanent address in the sky. 

The postman hands you your flight of birds
persisting in the original shape of wind. 

Whether they’re winging toward the scissors’ V
or printed and plastered on every wall 

or bound and trussed, bamboo frames wound with wire
or sentenced to death by fire 

you are, first
and always, ash. 

Broken wire, a hurricane at each end.
Fire trucks scream across the earth. 

But this blaze is a thing of the air.
Raise your glass higher, toss it up and away. 

Few know this kind of dizzy glee:
an empty sky, a pair of burning wings.

On view at Geary Contemporary, Millerton, NY, and Kristen Lorello, New York, NY

Geary, Millerton, NY, June 12 – July 25:
Scott Alario, Eve Biddle, Olivier Catté, Lisa Corinne Davis, Catherine Haggarty, Christopher Saunders, Ping Zheng

Kristen Lorello, New York, NY June 17 – July 23:
Noa Charuvi, Cui Fei, Francesca Gabbiani, Goldschmied & Chiari, Jacob El Hanani, Mahmoud Hamadani, Nancy Lorenz, Alan Prazniak, Katy Schimert, Sun You

Catherine Haggarty, b. 1984, is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York.

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Catherine Haggarty

Haggarty’s paintings and curatorial work have been reviewed by and featured in Bomb Magazine, Artnet, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, Two Coats of Paint, Brooklyn Magazine, The New York Times, Art Maaze Magazine, Art Spiel, Pep Talks for Artists, Sound and Vision Podcast and The Observer. Catherine has been a visiting artist & critic at Cornell MFA (2024), Rocky Mountain College of Art (2024), Western Connecticut MFA (2023), Contemporary Arts Memphis (2023), Vassar College (2023), Rutgers MFA (2022), UAlbany MFA (2022), MICA (2022), UCONN MFA (2022 + 2023), RISD BFA (2022), Pratt BFA (2022), The University of Oregon (2021), Boston University MFA (2021),  SUNY Purchase MFA (2020), Hunter MFA (2020), Denison University (2020), Brooklyn College MFA (2019) and in 2018 Haggarty was the Anderson Endowed Lecturer at Penn State University.  Solo & Two Person exhibitions include: Untitled Miami, Lorin Gallery, LA, Geary Contemporary (NYC), Massey Klein Gallery (NYC),  This Friday Next Friday (Brooklyn), Bloomsburg University (PA), and Look and Listen in Marseille France. Select group exhibitions include: The PIT (LA), Badr El Jundi (Madrid, Spain), Mindy Solomon (Miami, FL), Andrew Rafcaz (Chicago, IL), Hesse Flatow (NYC), Mrs (Maspeth, NY) and McBride Contemporary in Montreal, Canada. Haggarty earned her M.F.A from Mason Gross, Rutgers University in 2011. Haggarty is the Founder, Owner and Executive Director of The Canopy Program which is a one year mentorship program within the NYC Crit Club which Haggarty co-founded in 2017. In addition, Haggarty is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at Pratt Institute. Currently, Haggarty was the Spring 2024 Teiger Mentor for the Arts at Cornell AAP MFA and  recently was a Visiting Artist at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design (Denver, CO) on the occasion of her Exhibition featuring ten years of work at The Philip J. Steele Gallery.