Ki Smith Gallery announces Salome, a solo exhibition of works by Luke Ivy Price. This is Price’s second exhibition with the Gallery, and it marks the grand opening of Ki Smith Gallery’s location in the East Village.
Salome, a body of work composed by Price between 2019 and 2020, is a presentation of painting, sculpture, and drawing that confronts the eponymous story’s rich, yet fraught, written and performed history. Using Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play as a starting point, Price depicts the story of Salome, the princess of Judaea, who pursues, as Price puts it, “an investigation of lust, carelessly pursued and immorally executed.” The exhibition will include a rotating installation on two-week cycles. The artist has arranged his works into three parts that slowly unveil the narrative, a nod to the successive departures that have revolutionized the story of Salome from its sparse biblical source text.
Price has pulled vignettes of interpersonal, often sexually-driven, contact from the story and highlighted them in an array of works that clutch the emotional depths of the human experience. A pair of sculptures, Salome Approaches and The Baptist Recoils, captures the ultimate moment of confrontation in an unrequited love. Another highlight of the exhibition is a painting entitled Salome’s Reward, in which Salome is seen cradling the Baptist’s decapitated head. She is framed by a gap in breeze-kissed curtains that remind one of a slick entrance into the underworld. In this way, Price’s telling of the story does not rely on shock value: he renders this fallen world with a caress, a careful expressiveness that devastates. His surfaces glow but do not shine. They whisper incantations but do not sing.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue that includes an introduction by Editorial Director Naomi Falk; an essay by Jose Carpio; and texts by Mina Hamedi, Chris Molnar, and Elle Tyra. Please join us at our new location in the East Village on Wednesday, September 30th, from 4:00–9:00 p.m. for the opening reception of Salome. The Gallery will be open to a limited number of visitors at a time, so please be sure to schedule an appointment through our online booking platform, or via email to claire@kismithgallery.com.
