ARTIST

Sula Bermúdez-Silverman draws our attention to material culture—the world of objects and architecture that surrounds us—illuminating histories that are often obscured or elided even as they are present in our everyday lives. Using iconic forms such as a saddle or a dollhouse, she explores how objects can become symbols, and through transformations of scale and material, she destabilizes the way they represent and narrate the past. The artist employs a variety of specific materials—for instance, sugar and insect specimens—as metaphoric devices to think through colonialism and its attendant ideas and tangible effects, with particular interest in the Americas.

Drinks with leathern ears her tender cries is an extension of the artist’s series of peepholes, each serving as a visual representation of her ongoing material exploration. She see these works as akin to drawings or sketches. The image is one of Henry Fuseli's versions of his painting, 'The Nightmare,' (a subject he started painting in 1781), and the window frame is made out of culinary seasoning, pointing at the exchange and impact of colonial trade routes and goods.

Bermúdez-Silverman lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She received her MFA in Sculpture from Yale School of Art in 2018. She has presented solo exhibitions at Josh Lilley, London, England; Matthew Brown, Los Angeles, CA; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX; Murmurs Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Micki Meng, San Francisco, CA. She was recently included in the Hammer Museum biennial, Made in LA 2023: Acts of Living. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, Frieze, Cultured and Art Review, among others. Her work is in the public collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami, FL; de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; and California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA.

She will be included in the Jewish Museum’s forthcoming exhibition, Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration. Pre-order the catalogue!

CHARITY

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an independent international medical humanitarian organization that provides emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters, and exclusion from health care, regardless of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

In response to the Gaza-Israel War, MSF are asking for:

• An immediate and unconditional ceasefire that will spare the lives of Gazans and restore the flow of humanitarian aid.

• A lifting of the siege to allow increased and continuous humanitarian supplies to cross into Gaza.

• Protection for civilians and healthcare personnel and facilities on both sides, at all times; hospitals and ambulances are not targets.

• Basic guarantees of safety to enable their teams to move to provide humanitarian and medical services.

• Access to people in need of medical care and humanitarian aid, including the sick and wounded.

• People to be afforded safe access to essential supplies like food and water and health facilities.

• Increased essential humanitarian supplies like medicine, medical equipment, food, fuel and water must be allowed to enter the Gaza enclave.

• Those who wish to leave must be able to do so safely without prejudicing their future option to come back.

• In the West Bank, for Israeli authorities to put an end to the violence and forced displacements of Palestinians.

• Israeli authorities must stop implementing restrictive measures in the West Bank that impede the ability of Palestinians to access basic services, including medical care.