Sum of its Parts

Sum of its Parts October 18-November 8, 2026 Opening Reception: Part 2 – Sunday, October 18, 4:00–6:00 PM Curated by Imogen Aukland, Curator and Community Affiliate Artists: Soren Dudley, Ruimin Liang, MaoMao, Daniel McKleinfeld, Yena Seo-Yeon Park, Sophie Shantiben, Howard Skrill Drawing from the vibrant community of KUNSTRAUM's Residency and Studio programs, the 2026 Members' Exhibitions brings together 13 distinct voices. Split into two back-to-back exhibitions - After Form followed by Sum of its Parts - the consecutive shows highlight the depth of artistic practice developing within the KUNSTRAUM community. Featuring a spectrum of works from local and international artists, Sum of its Parts examines the deconstruction and reconstruction of the human body, while After Form investigates the tension between structure and abstraction. Sum of its Parts traces the body as it is reproduced, segmented, and perceived across mediums and through various stages of legibility. Embracing both contemporary and traditional modes of representation, the exhibition spans digital, analog, and physical media. Moving images, realistic sculptural facsimiles, and painterly flesh depict disarticulated anatomies alongside figures rendered in their entirety. Together, the artists in Sum of its Parts offer an alternative to static and singular representation. They reframe the human body as a site composed of distinct, layered parts; caught in a perpetual state of becoming. Fragmented through digital interference, the bodies in Daniel McKleinfeld's video work move constantly between states of being and levels of visibility, often dissolving and reappearing through layered visual static and graphic patterning. Combining digital and analog languages, McKleinfeld's computer-augmented videos sit within a traditional wooden frame. Also working in fragmentation of form, Ruimin Liang's bionic sculpture What is Love? isolates the body to its extremities. Like McKleinfeld, Liang combines technology and anatomy, this time doing so by mechanizing two hyper-realistic silicone fingers. The pair extend from a powered motor, reaching and bending towards each other with a detached, robotic stiffness. What is Love reduces physical form to a singular part; to a singular gesture. Isolated from its body, a photographed hand reaches across a countertop in Sophie Shantiben's Human Nature, inked with the letters A-M-O-R. Suspended mid-frame, the isolated tattooed hand acts as a segmented portrait. Shantiben's film photography retains a grainy, dreamlike quality, veiling her subjects in a haze of static. Soren Dudley's paintings adopt a more classic mode of oil portraiture, where the figure is formed through careful blended brushstrokes and precise anatomical modeling. Posed against a dark, atmospheric expanse, a nude body stands facing away, fully exposed; articulated in whole. Yena Seo-Yeon Park's painted figure is formed by subtle shifts in soft, glowing red light. In I Don't Know You, the subject's forehead rests gently upon a hazy hand, reaching dreamily towards a luminous mass. Form continues to loosen in Howard Skrill's Floating Man (Tribeca), where an elongated, blank-faced figure emerges from an accumulation of diffuse, colorful pencil strokes. The figure hovers at the threshold of clarity, caught between presence and dissolution. Maomao reduces the body to a suggestion in Warrior, presenting a functional helmet which alters the way identity is projected and perceived. Behind a reflective visor and domed metallic armor, the figure itself is completely absent, replaced by a protective shell. In Sum of its Parts, the body is treated as unfixed; moving via different mediums through states of visibility and embodiment. The figure is broken down into its component parts across classical, analog, and digital spaces, rejecting an idea of a fixed anatomy. The physical self is instead treated as an active process; continually reconfigured and transformed. Address: KUNSTRAUM, 20 Grand Avenue, Loft 509, Brooklyn, NY Visiting Hours: Thursday - Saturday, 12:00–6:00 PM, by appointment. Please email: [email protected] to schedule your visit.