A Group Show of Four Female Artists Affirms Our Admiration of the Post-COVID Art World

One of the most impressive things about COVID’s impact on the creative community is how quickly art galleries and art fairs adapted. We’re sure there was a lot of turmoil behind the scenes, but to outsiders like us it looked like they didn’t miss a beat, programmatically speaking. We expected radio silence, and instead we got two seasons full of great shows presented in thoughtful new online formats, or fully mounted by appointment only, which didn’t skimp at all on up-and-coming talents — and which we can only hope was a lifeline for all the artists involved.

The latest one to captivate us is an exhibition called Vantage Points on view at the NYC location of Grimm Gallery. In the tradition of (late) summer group shows, it’s more of a talent showcase than a thesis; the works on view don’t have an explicit relationship to one another, except for a loose connection to nature and to archival imagery or materials. But it’s the very rare kind of assemblage in which we fully love all of the artists and works: Letha Wilson’s abstracted nature photographs made three-dimensional, Heidi Norton’s nature-specimen sculptures, Sonia Almeida’s contemporary tapestries, and Claudia Peña Salinas’s abstracted references to indigenous Mexican history. Take a spin through below.
Vantage Points, 2020, Installation view 8Sonia Almeida, Heidi Norton, and Letha WilsonLetha Wilson, Double Palms Steel Fold, 2020, 91 x 55 x 20 | 36 x 22 x 8 in, LW20013Letha Wilson
Letha Wilson, TBT death valley red horizontal, 2020, 81 x 61 x 4 cm | 32 x 24 x 13_4, LW20011Letha WilsonVantage Points, 2020, Installation view 9Claudia Peña Salinas, Sonia Almeida, and Letha WilsonVantage Points, 2020, Installation view 2Heidi NortonVantage Points, 2020, Installation view 4Heidi Norton, Letha Wilson, and Claudia Peña Salinasgrimm-sonia-almeida-reverse-timeline-stretched-2019_2Sonia AlmeidaLetha Wilson, Mosaic Canyon Wall Cut, 2020, 106 x 73 x 10 cm | 42 x 29 x 4 in, LW20005Letha WilsonVantage Points, 2020, Installation view 7

Letha Wilson, Heidi Norton, Letha Wilson, and Claudia Peña SalinasVantage Points, 2020, Installation view 1Claudia Peña Salinas