VernissageTV

Christina Quarles: The Ground Glows Black / Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles

The new Hauser & Wirth show in downtown Los Angeles spotlights Christina Quarles’ latest body of work, anchored by the striking piece “The Ground Glows Black.” The exhibition brings together a series of large‑scale canvases that fuse gestural abstraction with fragmented figurative forms, inviting viewers into a visual landscape where darkness and light intersect. Quarles’ practice continues to interrogate race, gender, and the fluidity of identity through layered paint, overlapping silhouettes, and a palette that oscillates between muted earth tones and electric bursts. In “The Ground Glows Black,” the artist uses a deep, matte black ground that seems to emit its own glow, suggesting both concealment and revelation. Critics note the work’s “controlled chaos,” where the canvas surface becomes a battlefield for competing narratives of self‑construction. Curator Maya Lin describes the show as “a meditation on the spaces we inhabit when the visible world recedes.” Quarles herself remarked, “I want the black to feel like a womb—both a void and a source of possibility.” The installation’s spatial arrangement encourages viewers to move around the pieces, experiencing shifting perspectives that echo the artist’s interest in non‑linear storytelling. The exhibition signals Quarles’ ascent in the contemporary market, positioning her alongside peers who blend fine‑art rigor with cultural critique. For collectors and institutions, the show underscores a growing appetite for works that challenge conventional representation while delivering strong visual impact, potentially reshaping acquisition strategies in the coming years.