“Inna” is inside, or something familiar, or slang. For Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, it’s all of the above, and the title of his solo exhibition at Martos Gallery. Toussaint-Baptiste is a performance artist and composer with a research-based, conceptual practice. For his exhibition at Martos Gallery, he is presenting two large cubes, and a couple of tremors.
For Inna, Toussaint-Baptiste has erected two black cubes (or black holes depending on where you’re standing). They talk to each other; speaking in low tones and vibrations. Toussaint-Baptiste amplifies infrasonic tones through two subwoofers that sit atop two lightless structures. Get Low (Fades To) is an affective sonic environment that uses frequencies and materials to create black, and intensely intimate hyper-audible environments. Stepping inside allows you to feel the sound physically, inciting pleasure, discomfort, moments of reflection, and dream states.
The installations are large but few, and the gallery feels almost sterile, punctured with a few black holes. There is a lack in the gallery; but here, lack is a source of value. Using a site where bass may be felt and understood as a tool for both liberation as well as subjugation, Toussaint-Baptiste reflects on the search for personal truths, and mines what comes out of the black.
Inna features new compositions and sculptures, and is on view through February 23, 2020.
Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste (b. 1984, Baton Rouge, LA) MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College. He currently lives and works in New York, NY.
Select exhibitions include: “Pendulum Music: An Arrangement for Four Performers and Geodisic Dome,” MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2018); “Club,” Performance Space New York, New York, NY (2018); “Evil Nigger: A Five Part Performance for Julius Eastman,” The Kitchen, Brooklyn, NY (2018); “Study Of ‘Study Of Three Heads’,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2018); “Evil Nigger Part IV and Evil Nigger Part V,” Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, NY (2017); “Who Needs To Think When Your Feet Just Go+ Never Not Doing,” The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2016).
Select awards and residencies include: Bessie Award for Outstanding Music Composition and Sound Design (2018); Issue Project Room Artist-in-Residence (2017); Jerome Foundation Airspace Residency at Abrons Arts Center, New York (2019); Rauschenberg Residency 381 (2019). He is also a founding member of the performance collective Wildcat!.
