Main Space:
The Pull: Ortega y Gasset Projects Flat File 2025 
Curated by Eric Hibit 
Saturday, January 18, 2025 - Sunday, March 16, 2025
Opening reception: 6-8pm, Saturday, January 18, 2025

Ortega y Gasset Projects is pleased to present The Pull: OyG Projects Flat File 2025. The opening reception is on Saturday, January 18th, 6-8pm. The exhibition continues until March 16th, 2025.

Selected works are now available on the OyG Projects Flat File Store! 

Participating artists include: 
Taylor Absher, Emily Auchincloss, Clare Britt, Dan Cameron, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Erika Germain, Catherine Haggarty, Rachel Hellerich, Patrice Aphrodite Helmar, Hong Hong, Fritz Horstman, Will Hutnick, Alex Jovanovich, Jason Karolak, Xingze Li, Leeza Meksin, Tracy Miller, Kristine Moran, Pol Morton, John O'Connor, Mike Paré, Meghan Petras, Keisha Prioleau-Martin, Christian Rogers, Adam Liam Rose, Sarah Rushford, Andrew Schwartz, Pamela Sneed, Rachel Stern, Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, Ken Tisa, Zahar Vaks, Chuck Webster, Jenna Weiss, Lauren Whearty, Jack Arthur Wood 

“On a recent trip to Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, I discovered Rock Temple, a 1919 work on paper by Paul Klee. The work on paper is not displayed on the wall, but in a drawer that visitors can pull out themselves to view the work (such a set-up is possible in a small, intimate museum). Pulling the drawer reveals the work, matted, under a piece of Plexiglas held with a small metal lock. The work itself - an arrangement of clustered geometric shapes - has a simple visual power. It appears Klee diluted and wiped some of the watercolor away to reveal the paper underneath, and the effect is smokey. The strength of the work - and its visual potency - is contrasted by its material fragility. It’s just a thin piece of paper, over 100 years old, only a few inches wide. It’s a powerful whisper. 

The pull of the drawer - and the experience of seeing Klee’s work - inspired this show. Artworks that can be stored in a drawer hold a special intimacy. Works by the artists in this exhibition were chosen for tactility and the achievement of visual power on a small scale. As exhibition organizer, I worked from my taste and visual preferences, selecting artists whose work aroused my instinct”.

Eric Hibit 
Co-Director
OyG Projects 

Eric Hibit (born Rochester, NY) is a visual artist based in New York City. He attended the Corcoran College of Art + Design (BFA,1998) and Yale University School of Art (MFA, 2003). In New York, he has exhibited at Brooklyn Museum, Morgan Lehman Gallery, Dinner Gallery, Deanna Evans Projects, My Pet Ram, One River School of Art + Design, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Underdonk Gallery, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Zurcher Studio, C24 Gallery, Anna Kustera Gallery, Max Protetch Gallery, and elsewhere. He has exhibited nationally at Hexum Gallery in Montpelier, VT, Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC, Wege Center for the Arts at Maharishi University in Fairfield, IA, Adds Donna in Chicago, Curator’s Office in Washington, DC, Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington, MA, The Cape Cod Museum of Art, Satellite Contemporary in Las Vegas, NV, The University of Vermont, Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, CA and internationally in Sweden, France and Norway. His work has been covered by the Washington Post, The Village Voice, Hyperallergic, Newsweek, New York Times and New York Post. Hibit has taught studio art at Cornell University, The Cooper Union, Drexel University, Suffolk County Community College, Tyler School of Art, NYU and Hunter College. Artist residencies include Terra Foundation in Giverny, France (2003), UNILEVER Residency in New York (2015), and Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts (2019) and Green Olives Arts in Tetouan, Morocco (2019). Publications include Dear Hollywood Writers, with poet Geoffrey Young (Suzy Solidor Editions, 2017) and Paintings and Fables with Wayne Koestenbaum, a limited edition artist’s book (2017), and Color Theory for Dummies, published by Wiley (2022).  He is currently Co-Director of Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run gallery based in Brooklyn, where he has curated exhibitions since 2014.

The Skirt:
Walls Wearing Worlds
A site-specific exhibition by Leeza Meksin
Curated by Eric Hibit
January 18 - March 16, 2025
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 18, 6-8pm

Ortega y Gasset Projects is pleased to present Walls Wearing Worlds, a site-specific exhibition in The Skirt by OyG Co-Director and Co-Founder, the artist Leeza Meksin. The opening reception is on Saturday, January 18th, 6-8pm. The exhibition continues until March 16th, 2025.

Walls Wearing Worlds is a unique moment at OyG Projects because typically the organization does not feature solo exhibitions by its Co-Directors. For almost a dozen years, OyG Projects has provided artists in the wider creative community with a platform to experiment and test the possibilities of their medium. Meksin’s passion for site-specific work was at the root of creating The Skirts’ programming in addition to the main space gallery shows. Given her decade-long commitment to other artist’s site-specific exhibitions in the space, it feels appropriate to highlight Meksin’s own artistic practice at this time. 

Leeza Meksin’s work is characterized by an interest in the body: its shapes, sizes, and how it does (or does not) conform to the things it wears and the spaces it inhabits. In lieu of conventional figuration, Meksin alludes to the body by stretching yards of spandex mesh over the walls of The Skirt, in some cases, from floor to ceiling. This transformation of architecture into bodily evocations sets the stage for her painting (on canvas, wood panel, and neoprene), to appear on top of, behind, and in-between the transparent fabric. Meksin’s paintings offer further plot-twists of materiality and innovation, combining paper pulp, fabric, paint, found objects, sundry trimmings, and other (sometimes curious) incidentals. Like magnets for the flotsam of the world, Meksin’s paintings suck up the material richness of the consumerist landscape, re-rooting these potentially forgotten items into a new aesthetic and personal relevance.

Meksin’s interest in painterly and architectural conventions - and a simultaneous desire to push past those conventions - are two pillars of her artistic sensibility. The tension between these two pillars permeates both her art practice (as in Walls Without Worlds) and her curatorial practice, as well. Painting Deconstructed (May 18 - August 24, 2024) was Meksin’s last curated exhibition, featuring artists who likewise stretch, reinvent and surpass painting's material possibilities. A full-color catalog for Painting Deconstructed published by Space Sister’s Press is available HERE. Space Sister’s Press will also be publishing a color catalog for Walls Without Worlds, which will be launched at the closing of the exhibition on March 16, 2025.

This exhibition is curated by OyG Projects Co-Director Eric Hibit. For more information contact oygprojects@gmail.com 

BIO
Leeza Meksin (born Moscow, Russia) is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, installation, public art and multiples. Her work investigates parallels between conventions of painting, architecture and our bodies. Meksin has created site-specific installations for the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, CLEA RSKY, NYC, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, National Academy of Design, NYC, The Uptown Triennial at The Lenfest Center for the Arts, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kitchen, NYC, BRIC Media Arts, Regina Rex and Brandeis University. In 2015 Meksin received the emerging artist grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and in 2021 she was awarded the NYSCA/NYFA artist fellowship in Interdisciplinary Work. In 2019 Meksin was the artist in residence at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX. Her work has been featured in Bomb, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Village Voice. In 2022, Turret Tops and Before, a book featuring 15 years of her artistic practice, was published by Space Sisters Press. In 2013 Meksin co-founded Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run gallery that she continues to co-direct. Meksin’s curatorial projects have been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail and Two Coats of Paint. Her most recent curatorial project, Painting Deconstructed received support from the Andy Warhol Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and was listed by Hyperallergic in Best of 2024 Exhibitions in NYC. In 2021 Meksin joined the faculty at Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) where she is currently the Director of the MFA program in Creative Visual Arts.

Co-Orbital
A Group Exhibition at On The Fringe NYC
Curated by Annamariah Knox
January 5, 2025 - January 19, 2025

Opening Reception: Sunday, January 5th, 2025, 3-6 pm
Closing Reception: Sunday, January 19th, 2025, 3-6 pm
Gallery Hours: Fri/Sat 1-6 pm, or by appointment
Off-Site Location: 72 Warren Street, NYC, NY 10007

We are pleased to present Co-Orbital, an exhibition of works by the community of artists connected through Ortega y Gasset Projects, including Clare Britt, Catherine Haggarty, Eric Hibit, Cate Holt, Annamariah Knox, Wayne Koestenbaum, Leeza Meksin, Xingze Li, Erika Ranee, Adam Liam Rose, Emily Tatro, Zahar Vaks, and Lauren Whearty This off-site exhibition is curated by Annamariah Knox and will open on January 5th, with a closing reception on January 19th, 2025.

Ortega y Gasset Projects is a space for artists by artists, and has become a hub for a larger community of artists. This project represents our collective belief in the power of art to make change. Around OyG, our own paths circle at different speeds, intersect, and run parallel, influencing, and collaborating as we go. Our group is intersectional and varied, from our artistic practices to our geographies to our identities: a range reflected in this exhibition. We gather to witness these current times, working through the challenges of today, and modeling a way through, together.

Just as our paths orbit around this community, so too each work is its own pathway around a node of artistic interest. The works are specific and individual: up-close photography, ceramic sculpture, graphite textured surfaces, painted scenes, collaged cyanotypes, and abstracted photographic environments record different physical, temporal, and thematic processes. Yet, when seen together, co-ordinate, like a mapped cosmos, they reveal unexpected connections within our orbiting system.

This is an exciting opportunity to see the works of Ortega y Gasset co-directors and the community they continue to cultivate in conversation. The immense variety here thrills and reinforces the vision of this collective endeavor as having the capacity to hold and nurture different possibilities. Together we are in orbit, hurtling through, individually and connected.