Continuing Zygote's commitment to showcasing art by queer artists every summer, Incantations centers seven artists whose work questions ideas of ritual, spell-casting and magic through a queer lens. 

Conceived by Cleveland-based artist Jen P. Harris, the exhibition includes drawings and collage-based paintings by Harris alongside paintings, textiles, prints, and sculptures by Ajdin Kulić (Cleveland), E.E. Ikeler (New York), Fidencio Fifield-Perez (Minneapolis), Leeza Meksin (New York), Sarana Mehra (Los Angeles), and R Kauff (Cleveland). 

Originally planned as a solo exhibition, Incantations expanded to include six additional artists when Harris partnered with Zygote Press. The diamond-shaped “tiles” in Harris’s paintings are based on the winged beasts and flames of a thirteenth-century apocalypse manuscript, which she painstakingly copies, then cuts up and reconfigures. Motivating this body of work is a series of questions: When you’re living inside one story, how can you see around or beyond it? What patterns lie hidden beneath indoctrinated ideals and conventions? How do received narratives change when viewed through a queer lens? These questions guided the curation of the group show: the exhibiting artists radically transform materials or symbols, often through repetitive, accumulative actions that suggest ritual or spell-casting. Fragmented bodies, plants, and structures recombine into forms that refuse to cohere into expected narratives. Different scenarios come into view.

This project is supported by The Satellite Fund, administered by SPACES and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Regranting Program.