Monsieur Zohore

LE Revenant

September 18 – November 6, 2021

(Los Angeles, CA) de boer gallery is pleased to announce Le Revenant, a new exhibition by New York and Richmond based artist Monsieur Zohore. Utilizing all of the touchstones of Zohore’s oeuvre, including painting, installation, performance, and video Le Revenant centers itself around the ideas of a return, revisition, and re-examination. Connecting the alluding concepts and figures of Hollywood within art history, Zohore examines the socio political and economic inequities present within both systems.

Un Revenant en français translates to “one that returns after death,” the term is the present participle conjugation of verb revenir, “to return,” like a ghost. It is also the title of the 2015 film that finally garnered Hollywood darling Leonardo DiCaprio his Academy Award who is depicted in Zohore’s painting The Nine Leo’s, 2021. In another painting, titled Dude, Where’s My Car?, 2021, Zohore depicts images of Richard Ramirez, William Bonin, and Charles Manson and the cars they used to abduct their victims alongside Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott who played characters in the 2000 film of the same name. Set on a colorful background with palm trees and the famous Hollywood street signs that are also titles of famous films; Mullholand Dr. and Sunset Blvd., Kutcher and Scott are in a state of disbelief. Here, Zohore converges stardom or infamy with the idea of something, or someone missing.

Zohore’s paper towel paintings embrace the materials used in domestic quotidian labor. Conflating domestic labor and art production. Printing and inking the paper towels and then physically and metaphorically removing color with bleach and affixes them to canvas with an archival, acid free and PH neutral sealant. The result is one that transforms the disposable material into something unmistakable and everlasting.

The theme of transfiguration continues in Le Revenant as Zohore reimagines the traditional gallery space in one room as a theater. In another space, an installation realized with his long-time collaborator New York based composer Joshua Coyne entitled Untitled (It's an Honor Just to be Nominated), 2021 consists of a red carpet that either laughs or applauds as it is activated by a viewer. This installation is paired with a performance entitled MZ.05 (Grâce), 2021 where-in a group of performers stand along the red carpeted steps at the entrance of the gallery, and applaud throughout the duration of the opening reception.

The video work included in the exhibition MZ.21 (Le Pirate), 2021 is a bootleg recording of a current movie in theaters that is visually and solely focused on a ghost that has gone to see the film. The ghost is shown laughing, crying, cheering, screaming, and eating popcorn while the audio from the film continues to clue the viewer into possible reasons for these reactions. MZ.21 (Le Pirate), 2021 is presented in it’s own room of the gallery surrounded by furniture covered in sheets, and Untitled (Concession), 2021 a popcorn machine with unlimited popcorn also covered in a sheet similar to the one Zohore dons in the performance. Zohore effectively re-introduces the gallery to its audience as a new entity, one whose Lynchien effect is immediately familiar yet unsettingling.

In the wake of constant violence and loss in our communities, Zohore will debut a new research-based performance called Clock the Spook, that allows him to explore the horrors of both past and present. Within a historical context of artists such as Adrian Piper, Lorraine O’Grady, and Sharon Hayes who have worked under similar conditions, Zohore will disguise himself in a ghost costume to protect his body. Poetically transforming his queer black body into one that can move freely about space in disguise, this provocative work, asks the audience to confront truths about themselves and the society they live in.

A catalog will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.

ABOUT MONSIEUR ZOHORE

Monsieur Zohore is an Ivorian-American artist based in New York and Virginia. Through performance, sculpture, installation and theater, his practices explore queer histories alongside his Ivorian-American heritage through a multi-faceted lens of humor, economics, art history, and labor. Zohore has had solo and two person exhibitions in 2021 at; Springsteen, Baltimore, MD and Jack Barrett Gallery, New York, NY. Group shows include; New Release Gallery, New York, NY; One Trick Pony, Los Angeles, CA, 56 Henry, New York, NY; Canada Gallery, New York, NY; and The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD. Zohore will have a solo exhibition at de boer, Los Angeles in September 2021. His work has also been exhibited at Spurs Gallery Beijing, Galleria Bianconi Sito, Milan, Italy; Springsteen, Baltimore; Ethan Cohan, NY; Palo Gallery, NY: New Release Gallery, NY;, 56 Henry NY;, Canada Gallery NY;, and Jack Barrett Gallery NY;, also been invited to show at The Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore), Washington Projects for the Arts, and at The Columbus Museum of Art. In 2021, Zohore will present a site specific sculpture for Socrates Sculpture Park, NY. Zohore received his BFA from the Cooper Union and his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Zohore is the 2020 recipient of the WPA and Warhol Foundation Wherewithal Research Grant, as well as a 2021 Socrates Artist Fellowship.

SELECTED WORKS

Monsieur Zohore
MZ.21 (Le Pirate), 2021
single channel video
5 minutes 55 seconds
Edition of 3 (2 APs)

INSTALLATION VIEWS

Exhibition Catalog

ARTISTS