PLATO

PLATO is supremely excited to announce the opening of Exaltation, an eighteen-artist group exhibition dedicated to various mannerist styles of today, which will run through August 23. Exaltation characterizes our era as that of transformation and emotional charge; a time when history is being relived, recreated and reexamined through the prism of now. 

 

I’ve been thinking about this show for several years. The final catalyst for it was Katie White’s 2024 Artnet article about the alleged rise of the Neo-Rococo movement in contemporary art. White, following Danielle Thom’s observations in ArtReview two years prior, singled out a group of female artists as those reviving the tradition of 18th-century France celebrating fashion, wealth and frivolity. Not disagreeing with White, I, however, recognized this trend as part of a bigger and more diverse movement, a sort of mannerism reflecting the turbulence, instability and both controversial and hopeful changes of our time.

 

Mannerism as a broader term largely applies to artists imitating their predecessors–who adhered to a more harmonious, classical tradition–in exaggerated and exalted ways. There are a number of periods in the history of art resonating with the current moment, not only the pre-revolutionary years in France when the uneven wealth distribution and the rich’s “let them eat brioche” attitude gave birth to the Rococo. Some of them are: the Ancient Roman empire right before the “there-is-no-tomorrow” lifestyle led to its demise millennia ago; post-1527 Italy after the sack of Rome, when the original Mannerist Style was defined and flourished; pre-WWI Europe, and Russia before the revolution of 1917, when new and Neo-Mannerist movements ran amok, responding to rapid social and technological changes, and reflecting the era’s hopes and anxieties.

 

Doechii’s single Anxiety could serve as a soundtrack for Exaltation, since it itself is a spin off of a viral song by Gotye and Kimbra, “Somebody That I Used to Know,”–an accurate description that the year 2025 could assign to 2011, when the original track was written. Anxiety is perhaps the principal sentiment of mannerist art, which proclaims an end of an era of harmony and bursts with asymmetries, diagonals, unexpected colors, precarious compositions and all sorts of emotion-stirring textures and effects: fireworks, sweat, reflections, lights, neon glow and shine of fluorescent fabric.

 

The diversity and scope of today’s mannerists are far and wide, making Exaltation a time machine with a modern twist. The Rococo is inescapable, with a literal–and very exalted–quote from Fragonard’s The Swing by Vickie Vainionpää, Vadim Pugin’s exuberant seashell attuned to the rhythm of human heart, Marlon Portales’ glistening armor, Maude Corriveau’s pastel folds and tufting and Darina Karpov’s phosphorescent dreams. Elsewhere, however, Alex Sutcliffe pays a digital-looking nod to Flemish Baroque. Takura Suzuki pays an homage to Dutch still-lifes, while stamping them with Mandarin neon signs. Erik Nieminen infuses French Neo-Classical painting with an uncanny sensuality of AI’s emotional remove.

 

Later in the time continuum, high-keyed bioformic mixed-media paintings of Mevlana Lipp transport us both to the Symbolist late 1800s and the 1970s disco culture. Alic Brock’s extravagant giants channel the decadence of both Teresa de Lempicka’s 1920’s Paris and that of Ancient Rome, spruced with an instagram-age aesthetic. Guillermo Serrano Amat’s restaurant debauchery mixes the willowy American figures of Thomas Hart Benton with the color palette and frenzy of George Grosz’s nightlife of Weimar Republic’s Berlin. 

 

Despite the palpable angst, the show’s main leitmotif is an overarching sense of optimism and dynamism. The turn of the 20th century and post-WWI years glance at us from Kim DeJesus’ radiant abstractions, a mix between James McNeill Whistler's fireworks and life-affirming, splashy canvases of American Abstract Expressionists. Even static scenes are charged with explosive energy. Jacob Rochester’s sitting boxer, perhaps about to return to the ring, evokes the eerily quiet drama of Caravaggio. Ákos Ezer’s sitting youth could break the picture plane were he to stand up straight. 

 

The planet is possibly doomed, but why sulk? Instead of decrying the ever-growing light pollution, Yoon Hyup glorifies it in a neo-pointillistic aerial-view hymn to downtown Manhattan. Andrew Woolbright’s bearded office worker is engaged in his “side hustle” with Michelangeloesque grandiosity. Like in a Noah’s arch for art, Gretchen Scherer’s French salon-meets white cube gallery joins disparate paintings of her favorite masters in one joyful unison. Stass Shpanin’s Horn Angel, originally sourced from American folk art, announces the coming of the new age with a naive and fragmented, yet sweet hopefulness. 

 

In the world where every news is breaking news and everyone can be famous for three seconds, artists are trying to grasp onto the comforting permanence of the past with a well-spirited exaltation of post-postmodernism. If the end might be near and one wants to live at the height of their emotions, in hopeful reverie, and ideally in style, who are we to judge?

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