Figural Realism: M'barek Bouhchichi, Armando Guadalupe Cortés, Sophie Harpo, Sophie Kovel, Orlee Malka, and Emily Velez Nelms

Jenkins Johnson Projects, New York is pleased to present Figural Realism, an exhibition curated by Meleko Mokgosi, featuring works by M'barek Bouhchichi, Armando Guadalupe Cortés, Sophie Harpo, Sophie Kovel, Orlee Malka, and Emily Velez Nelms.

Figural Realism takes its title from historian Hayden V. White’s book Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect (1998). In his book, White writes on scholar Erich Aurbach’s seminal work on mimesis and argues that history is always an incomplete and unstable project that depends on discursivity. White exposes the literariness of historical writing and the realism of literary writing, in order to further argue that what is conventionally understood as a history should always be contested. He puts forth that the “very distinction between literal and figurative speech is a purely conventionalist distinction and is to be understood by its relevance to the sociopolitical context in which it arises.”