FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
12Gates is thrilled to present In Tandem: The Philadelphia Residency Show (12G Residency Cohort 2024), a group exhibition featuring work by sāgar kāmath, Cristhian Varela, and Yaqeen Yamani, the 2nd cohort of 12G’s Philadelphia Residency. The exhibition is curated by Atif F. Sheikh in partnership with RISD MFA students Cassidy Argo, Mary Connell, Shamira Dharap, Nguyễn Xuân-Lam, Abigail Parsons, and Carrie Wilmarth. In Tandem: The Philadelphia Residency Show (12G Residency Cohort 2024) opens on Saturday, January 11th, 2025 and will remain on view until Saturday, February 22nd, 2025.
Opening, Panel, Reception: January 11th, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Artist Panel and discussion will be held at 5:30 PM, featuring artists, sāgar kāmath and Cristhian Varela, moderated by Brittany Webb, Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of Twentieth-Century Art and the John Rhoden Collection at Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts
(Twelve Gates Arts is located at 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106)
EXHIBITION INFORMATION:
Revolution spins in myriad forms, each turn revealing new facets of resistance, identity, and shared human experience. In this exhibition, three artists - Cristhian Varela, Yaqeen Yamani, and sāgar kāmath - explore the shape of revolution through diverse mediums and personal histories, inviting us to reconsider our understanding of political and cultural transformation. In Tandem: The Philadelphia Residency Show (12G Residency Cohort 2024) will be on view from Saturday, January 11th, 2025 to Saturday, February 22nd, 2025.
Cristhian Varela's work embodies the cyclical nature of political struggle and resistance. His Sad Nude, a small Mesoamerican sculpture that rejects objectification and the Western gaze, embodying a silent resistance. His series Dios No Me Ama - prints of trucks bearing provocative religious messages - adds another layer to this exploration, highlighting the complex interplay of faith, identity, and cultural expression in Central American painted truck art. These works, informed by Varela's Honduran American identity, set the stage for a broader discussion of revolution, resistance, and cultural transformation - themes that are further developed in the works of Yamani and kāmath. Among Varela’s broader body of work, his Tornillo Sin Fin - a 10-foot-long sculpture of a spinning screw suspended in mid-air - conceptually resonates with these themes of persistent resistance and transformation.
Palestinian artist Yaqeen Yamani's contribution takes a more intimate approach to revolution. Her work titled Bread Recipe features a bread recipe whose directions are imbued with philosophical, radical, and deeply personal reflections, accompanied by an installation of bread halves stamped with the words “my people, your people." I see connections to the chapati movement of 1957 in British-occupied India, where bread became a vehicle for secret revolutionary messages. Responding to recent instances of Palestinian censorship in art spaces, Yamani chose to relocate her MFA thesis exhibition off campus, demonstrating how art itself becomes an act of resistance. Yamani relocated to Jericho, Palestine at the end of the residency where Broken Bread is continuing to evolve from community and friends' influence. Through this ongoing collaboration and shared experience, the simple act of breaking bread transforms into a radical gesture, embodying resistance and solidarity. Can the circular form of a loaf embody the shape of revolution?
Indian American artist sāgar kāmath's series, anchored by two large paintings Night's Melodrama and Birth of Night, embraced by Blue and Red transforms the gallery into a cosmic theater. Using AB crystals, hemp twine, and coconut shell beads as celestial ornaments for larger works, and organic materials like khadi cotton rag or sugarcane paper for smaller pieces, kāmath explores revolution through the lens of cosmic narratives and diasporic identity. His work stems from a provocative question: What if every looted South Asian object in Western museums awoke as a demon? This inquiry drives kāmath’s exploration of migration, ecological disaster, and the making of myths. The artist employs the Line as a world-building tool, imbuing his settings and characters with movement and vibration. This use of Line connects storytelling, dance, and physical movement, suggesting how myth and narrative fuel the ongoing motion of revolution - both forward and cyclical. kāmath’s focus on developing the character of “Night” is particularly intriguing. Night is conceptualized as an entity that reconstructs itself daily, creating space for its subjects to exist as they wish, for love, longing, and intimacy. This relates to how revolutionary movements continually reshape themselves and create new realities. Through these works, we're prompted to consider: How do personal and cultural transformations mirror the cyclical nature of cosmic narratives? How does the metaphor of night inform our understanding of identity in revolution - the tension between who we are, who we are assigned to be, and the potential to break and recreate the cycles on our own terms?
These artists' works, despite their diverse practices and cultural backgrounds, engage in a silent dialogue about the nature of revolution and resistance. Created in a shared studio space, the spinning screw, the bread installation, and the personified night sky each offer a unique perspective on the multifaceted nature of change and transformation.
As we navigate this exhibition, we are challenged to reconsider our preconceptions about revolution. How do personal revolutions intersect with political ones? In what ways do our cultural histories and communal experiences shape our understanding of transformation? How can art serve as a vehicle for resistance and change, even in the face of censorship and oppression?
In her seminal work Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde reminds us that "Revolution is not a one-time event." This exhibition embodies that sentiment, presenting revolution not as a single, defined moment, but as an ongoing process - a constant turning, a perpetual breaking of bread, an endless night sky slowly wheeling overhead. Through these works, we are invited to see revolution not just as a political act, but as a fundamental aspect of human existence, ever-present and ever-evolving.
The Philadelphia Residency is a three-month career-building and creation module established by 12G to provide early-career artists with the physical and communal space, resources, and industry knowledge to plant roots and flourish in Philadelphia.
sāgar kāmath is an interdisciplinary artist working between mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, sound, video, collage, public art, and dance. His practice investigates the multiplicities of his identities as an Indian-born American through narrative building, materiality, line, space, and movement. His research-based methodology simultaneously interrogates his body, the surrounding landscape, and colonial histories through the engagement of non-linear time. sāgar’s art education began at a young age with his father and continued through his time at Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12. sāgar received his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and his Master of Fine Arts in Multidisciplinary Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Mount Royal School of Art. sāgar has had exhibitions and performances in Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Washington DC. In May 2023, sāgar was invited as an Artist-in-Residence for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art’s Centennial celebration.
Cristhian Varela (he/him) is a multidisciplinary artist, working stiff, and dreamer based in Philadelphia, PA. His practice is auto-ethnographic, engaging with a wide range of media, including image, text, performance, moving image, and sculpture. Cristhian’s work explores the emotional and mental toll of labor, the history and politics of the working class, and the ongoing destabilization of Central America by foreign powers. Drawing on archival research and a critical examination of pop culture, his art addresses the complex immigrant experience—specifically the search for belonging across cultures and geographies. Through his work, Cristhian interrogates themes of displacement, identity, and resistance, often blurring the boundaries between personal and collective histories.
Yaqeen Yamani is a Yemeni Palestinian photographer and artist who received a BA in Media Studies and Film from the Al-Quds Bard College and is currently a Fulbright Scholar and an MFA candidate in Photography at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Yamani’s art practice includes photography, video, and printmaking. Her process centers material experimentation to explore themes of identity, rage, and grief. Through the use of language, image and text, Yamani’s current body of work focuses on modes of resistance, intervention, disruption, and reclamation. Besides her artistic practice, Yaqeen is a community oriented person who enjoys teaching art, photography, and organizing film screenings for the community.
About Twelve Gates Arts
Founded in 2011, Twelve Gates Arts (12G) is an arts gallery located in Old City, Philadelphia that uplifts South & West Asian diasporic artistic voices within the local cultural landscape.
12G quarterly visual exhibitions and community events focus on an emerging art landscape that maps the cultures of migration, inclusive of the systems that influence it: race, gender, creed, empire, and economy. A nod to the archetypal fortified walls that surround Imperial medieval cities worldwide, our namesake underlies our exhibitions and events, which celebrate the melange of cultural identity that foments as peoples move and settle.