Industrial Dry, curated by Francesca Altamura at Jack Barrett, gathers artists whose material practices examine the changing urban landscape through abstraction. Across a wide range of media—from terrazzo to steel, wool to petroleum—these works prioritize tactile engagement as a way to process identity, memory, labor, and loss. Found and industrial materials are reshaped into structures that confront fragility, inviting reflection on what cities leave behind.
Some artists emphasize transformation: worn metal, cardboard, and photo plates are repurposed into forms that recall ruins, shelters, and erased histories. Others explore abstraction as a tool for mapping personal experience—queer nightlife, diasporic identity, ecological rupture. Throughout the exhibition, material serves as both medium and message, embedding narrative into surface. Whether devotional or utilitarian, subtle or confrontational, the works reflect a collective commitment to preservation and reinvention in an unstable world.
Artists include: Greg Carideo, Pap Souleye Fall, Zhi Wei Hiu, Ficus Interfaith, Jesús Hilario-Reyes, Christopher Paul Jordan, Patrick Carlin Mohundro, Nora Normile, María Elena Pombo, Douglas Rieger, Nikita Seleznev, Pauline Shaw, and Ana Villagomez
