Collaging Desire: Archival Interventions, Future Visions

April 8-12, 2021
EXPO CHGO

Assembly is pleased to present Collaging Desire: Archival Interventions, Future Visions, an exhibition of works by Alanna Fields and Pacifico Silano. Fields’ and Silano’s artistic practices both mine queer photographic archives, recontextualizing their subjects in the present moment as a way to not only reflect on the past but also to imagine new futures. Fields’ work examines the dialogue between black queer bodies in the photographic space by focusing on gesture and gaze through various forms of cropping and masking, including the use of paint, wax, and mica flakes. Silano’s practice explores imagery sourced from vintage gay pornography magazines published after the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Through cutting and layering, Silano obscures the explicit nature of the original imagery, presenting quiet, tender moments of reflection. Through these various forms of collage, both Fields and Silano contemplate photography’s role in the struggle for visibility. Their work simultaneously celebrates enduring love, compassion, and community—constructing a new vision of desire that extends backwards and forwards in time.

Alanna Fields is a lens-based mixed media artist and archivist whose work examines the dialogue between black queer bodies in the photographic space through gesture, aesthetics, and the negotiation between legibility and masking. Fields' work has been featured in exhibitions at Pt. 2 Gallery, Residency Art Gallery, Felix Art Fair in LA, UNTITLED Art Fair in Miami, MoCADA, Pratt Institute, and the Prince George's African American Museum and Cultural Center. Fields is a 2018 Gordon Parks Foundation Scholar, 2020 Light Work AIR, 2020 Baxter St CCNY Workspace Artist in Residence, and the recipient of Gallery Aferro's John and Lynn Kearney Fellowship. Fields received her MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute in 2019, and currently lives and works in New York City.

Pacifico Silano is a lens-based artist whose work is an exploration of print culture, the circulation of imagery and LGBTQ+ identity. He received his MFA in Photography, Video & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Bronx Museum; Tacoma Art Museum; Oude Kerk, Amsterdam; Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, and is currently part of the group exhibition, Fantasy America, which opened at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in March 2021. He has had solo shows at Baxter ST@CCNY, The Bronx Museum of the Arts Block Gallery, Rubber-Factory, Stellar Projects, NYC, and Fragment Gallery, Moscow. Reviews of his work have appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, and The Washington Post. Awards include the Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship, NYFA Fellowship in Photography, and being a Finalist for the Aperture Foundation Portfolio Prize. His work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art.