Give Me Pleasure or Give Me Death
Morrison Gong
Curated by Ali Rossi and April Zhu

presented by Olympia x Tutu Gallery
Exhibited in three locations.

C’mon Everybody
December 10 - January 1, 2022
325 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn

Home
Dec 18 - 30, 2021
291 Grand St Lower East Side

Tutu Gallery
Dec 18 - February 2022
by Appointment only.

“Whenever the golden thread of pleasure enters that web of things which our intelligence is always busily spinning, it lends to the visible world that mysterious and subtle charm which we call beauty.” - George Santayana

Morrison Gong manipulates the fictitious nature of photography to create staged realities, while inviting space for improvisation, randomness, and chance. Informed by the philosopher and poet George Santayana’s considerations on the materials of beauty, where he favored a radical reconciliation of spirit and nature, Gong’s visual approach to intimacy originates in the sphere of sexuality; emerging as “pleasure objectified” a state of being intended for both viewer and photographic image. Gong’s recent series of portraits interweave a theory of aesthetic experience with physical pleasure. Sitters range from old friends, acquaintances, and strangers, with whom the artist made a collaborative playlist to accompany the photographs. They disrupt and re-work conventional writings of erotic symbolism that depend on physical and spiritual distance and coquetry. Tensions traditionally found between the pornographic tendency to reveal and the erotic tendency to conceal are blurred. Morrison Gong moved to the United States from China when they were 18 years of age. The presence of their Chinese and nonbinary identity enables them to forground intimacy and question how personal spaces are developed pictorially. Artifacts can represent mementos of anthropocentric experiences, while nature represents a sort of origin of beauty and catalysis for vivacious and bold flux. Somewhere in between these spaces, the nuanced dynamics of relationships are preserved.

Morrison Gong 龔家琪 (b. 1997, China) is a photographer and filmmaker whose work deconstructs their perception of beauty through expressions of sexuality. Placing nude bodies within natural environments, as well as around cultural artifacts, they record personal experiences of carnality in contexts of seduction, displacement and ephemerality. Gong received their BFA from Parsons School of Design and is currently a MA candidate at the New School for Social Research. Their works have been shown at Anthology Film Archives, Microscope Gallery, Vox Populi Gallery, the Filmmakers Cooperatives, CROSSROADS presented by San Francisco Cinematheque, Manhattan Independent Film Festival, Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival, among others. They are based in Brooklyn, NY.

ABOUT OLYMPIA
www.olympiart.org

Olympia is dedicated to dismantling the cis-male-centric art canon. Founded in 2015 at Mount Holyoke, a historical women’s college, Olympia hosts shows, interviews and events with women, non-binary, and transgender artists. 41 Orchard St. houses our bookshop and gallery, where we champion artist-focused curation and support contemporary makers from a range of frameworks and mediums. Our exhibition programme has been reviewed by Artnet, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz Magazine, Two Coats of Paint, and featured in Cultured Magazine, as well as LVL3. In addition to our in-house operations, our install team travels across New York and beyond offering expert art-handling services. We are artist-first and artist-focused, with deep commitment to building community, rejecting binaries, and amplifying creative voices.

ABOUT TUTU GALLERY
www.tutugallery.art

Tutu Gallery is a feline-owned DIY space located in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, founded in July 2019 by Tutu (cat) and her human assistant April Zhu. Tutu is dedicated to under-the-radar talents who are self-trained, immigrants, or students. Tutu displays works that stay true to our shared and ordinary experience of being. Tutu hopes to nurture the start of a career for our artists and encourage the audience to live with art by creating a piece of their own or discovering beauty everywhere in their daily life. Tutu’s programs have been featured on Harper’s BAZAAR (China), the Costal Post, and BOMB Magazine.

For additional information,
Please contact Ali Rossi at arossi@olympiart.org