Nine Oils
Anna-Sophie Berger, Sanya Kantarovsky, Oliver Osborne, Minh-Lan Tran, Banks Violette
January 21st - March 9th, 2024
Spirit of Vitriol
The relic has been preserved in the basilica for hundreds of years, matte as a wax figurine, with dried up teeth and a shaved skull nose. Stripes of dust rise beneath the mute blue habit.
Numerous official and historical documents have established its veracity.
The relic is the real head of the saint.
There are three people in the basilica: the boy, the man who stares ahead in silence, the saint.
The burn victim on the step sits with his cardboard sign. He has a cup of coins and a cup of pallid coffee, now cool, too much cream. Two solutions. Unwittingly, the boy drops a coin in the wrong cup.
The saint, like the burn victim, was unsightly, fearsome to behold at length. Like the burn victim, he nonetheless occupies every corner. There is a statue at the end of this street, and the next, and the next. There is a plaque with important dates embossed. Passersby plead before his face.
The burn victim, marred, miraculous, has made himself the representative of chance. He hovers a palm above his paper chalices, one and then the other.
As the light wanes the boy returns to his designated quarters, an introverted room of cold linoleum and peeling walls blotted with inscrutable stains, the single window overlooking cobblestone that slopes toward the square. At this hour the glare of low sun obscures all view of the basilica’s façade, ripe at the navel of the sky, rubicund and wounding the monochrome sheath.
The boy’s features ripple in the glass and the night, incipient, retains residual weight like dregs of a stale pond after record heat.
By now it should be known that Providence favors practitioners of blind faith; the man of most scruples is spited. Still, visitors forgo the cardboard sign with pocketed fists, to be borne clammy and pressed together at the statue. They strain upwards, search in vain for a diluted power in his eyes.
There is sense and then there is attachment to the sense.
Children, below sight, go unnoticed. Forgotten models, they touch the statue’s feet and in the same motion meet the bleary gaze of the burn victim, anointing both with an immortal balm.
The burn victim has already outlived his form.
When he dies it will be choking on a coin for which he spent his days waiting.
The man who stares in the basilica establishes the relic’s veracity without official and historical documents, by his silence alone.
-Paris J.B Reid
Anna-Sophie Berger (b. 1989, Vienna) lives and works between Vienna and New York. Selected solo exhibitions include Mode und Tod, Layr, Vienna (2023); The Years, MAK Geymüllerschlössel, Vienna (2023); Wealth and Propriety, Lodos, Mexico City (2022); Sin, JTT, New York (2022); Duel, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2020); A Failed Play, Cell Project Space, London (2019); New York, Studio for Propositional Cinema, Düsseldorf (2017); Places to fight and make up, MUMOK, Vienna (2016); Billboards, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz (2016).
Sanya Kantarovsky (b. 1982, Moscow) lives and works in New York. Selected solo exhibitions include To Prison, Nonaka-Hill, Los Angeles (2023); After birth, Taka Ishii Gallery, Kyoto (2023); A Solid House, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2022); Center, Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2022); The House of the Spider, Modern Art, London (2021); Disease of the Eyes, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2018); Letdown, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2017).
Oliver Osborne (b. 1985, Edinburgh) lives and works in Berlin. Selected solo exhibitions include Manganese Blue, Galeria Pelaires, Palma de Mallorca (2023); Recent Painting, Tanya Leighton, Los Angeles (2023); Mantegna’s Dead Christ, Union Pacific, London (2022); Portrait of a Fat Man for Düsseldorf, JVDW, Düsseldorf (2022); Der Kleine Angsthase, Braunsfelder, Cologne (2020); Birth, Education, Leisure, Death, Giò Marconi, Milan (2019); Bonnie, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2018).
Minh-Lan Tran (b. 1997, Hong Kong) lives and works in Paris. Selected exhibitions solo exhibitions include Space of Resistance, Jan Kaps, Cologne (2023); Heat Generation, Harlesden High Street, London (2023); Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond (two-person show with Evelina Haggünd), Nicoletti Contemporary, London (2022).
Banks Violette (b. 1973, Ithaca) lives and works in Ithaca. Selected solo exhibitions include Gladstone 64, New York (2018); Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2012); Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2011); Gladstone Gallery, New York (2010); Museum Dhont-Dhaenens, Deurle (2010); Espacio Arte Contemporáneo La Conservera, Ceutí, Spain (2009); Team Gallery, New York (2009); Maureen Paley, London (2008); Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels (2008); Focus: Banks Violette, Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth (2008); Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen (2007); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2005); Arroyo Grande, 7.22.95, Team Gallery, New York (2002).
Minh-Lan Tran
Iconophobia
2024
Tempera, charcoal, and oil on linen
59 x 78¾ x 1⅛ in.
150 x 200 x 3 cm
![Minh-Lan Tran at Francis Irv Nine Oils Exhibition]()
![Minh-Lan Tran at Francis Irv Nine Oils Exhibition]()
Iconophobia
2024
Tempera, charcoal, and oil on linen
59 x 78¾ x 1⅛ in.
150 x 200 x 3 cm
Sanya Kantarovsky
Simultaneity
2024
Oil on linen
55 x 39½ in.
139.7 x 100.33 cm
![Sanya Kantarovsky at Francis Irv Nine Oils Exhibition]()
![Sanya Kantarovsky at Francis Irv Nine Oils Exhibition]()
Simultaneity
2024
Oil on linen
55 x 39½ in.
139.7 x 100.33 cm
Banks Violette
untitled (two horses/inverted)
2023
Graphite on paper
22 x 30 in.
55.88 x 76.2 cm
25 x 32½ in. (framed)
63.50 x 82.55 cm (framed)
![Banks Violette at Francis Irv Nine Oils Exhibition]()
untitled (two horses/inverted)
2023
Graphite on paper
22 x 30 in.
55.88 x 76.2 cm
25 x 32½ in. (framed)
63.50 x 82.55 cm (framed)
Anna-Sophie Berger
Cloak
2021
Velvet, tripod and variable hardware
86⅝ x 59 x 59 in.
220 x 150 x 150 cm
![Anna-Sophie Berger at Francis Irv Nine Oils Exhibition]()
![Anna-Sophie Berger at Francis Irv Nine Oils Exhibition]()
Cloak
2021
Velvet, tripod and variable hardware
86⅝ x 59 x 59 in.
220 x 150 x 150 cm
Oliver Osborne
Recent Painting (9 Leaves)
Oil on linen in artist's frame
15⅞ x 13⅞ in.
40.2 x 35.2 cm
21 x 19 x 2½ in. (framed)
53.20 x 48.20 x 6.50 cm (framed)
Recent Painting (9 Leaves)
Oil on linen in artist's frame
15⅞ x 13⅞ in.
40.2 x 35.2 cm
21 x 19 x 2½ in. (framed)
53.20 x 48.20 x 6.50 cm (framed)
Oliver Osborne
Recent Painting (17 Leaves)
2023
Oil on linen in artist's frame
17 3/4 x 15 3/4 x 1 1/8 in.
45 x 40 x 3 cm
22⅞ x 20⅞ x 2⅜ in. (framed)
58.00 x 53.00 x 6.00 cm (framed)
Recent Painting (17 Leaves)
2023
Oil on linen in artist's frame
17 3/4 x 15 3/4 x 1 1/8 in.
45 x 40 x 3 cm
22⅞ x 20⅞ x 2⅜ in. (framed)
58.00 x 53.00 x 6.00 cm (framed)
Documentation by Jeffrey Sturges