Vielmetter Los Angeles presents The Stakes Are Myself, Miami-based artist Jared McGriff’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from May 17 through June 28, 2025. The exhibition’s title references Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters, a poetic series written during the political turbulence of the late 1960s and early '70s. McGriff draws from this work—particularly the line “the stakes are myself”—to explore the emotional and existential costs of living in uncertain times. His new body of work responds to contemporary political unrest by depicting moments of risk-taking in everyday life, turning acts like gambling, fishing, and horse racing into metaphors for survival, chance, and resilience.
Through richly detailed scenes and portraiture, McGriff reframes these ordinary experiences as powerful visual allegories. In The Inherent Risk of Surviving Infancy, in Trio (2025), three men play dice in a tense, dramatically lit composition where the dice remain out of view, heightening the focus on the players' psychological states. Similarly, in A Conduit of Trust and An Engine of Instinct and Intuition (both 2025), portraits of a gambler and a croupier emerge from dark voids, capturing moments of poised anticipation. These figures, caught in the quiet intensity of decision-making, underscore McGriff’s central theme: the complex interplay between fate and agency in a world defined by risk.
