MAIN GALLERY:
PENUMBRA: BEYOND THE UNCANNY VALLEY
Curated by Austin Johnson and Peter Kelly 
March 7 - April 26, 2026
Opening Reception Saturday, March 7th, 2026, 6-8pm

Penumbra: Beyond the Uncanny Valley is an intergenerational exhibition of works by artists creating simulacra of both the human form and domicile—doll and dollhouse. The artists included, while uniquely varied in perspective and approach, all make similar choices in terms of scale, form, and media. The exhibition title references the 1970 musical sexploitation film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls—the official-turned-unofficial surrealist sequel-turned-parody of the iconic 1967 film, The Valley of the Dolls, as well as the penumbra–an astronomical term referring to the partially shaded outer region of a shadow cast by an opaque object.

Artist Mike Kelley was interested in plushies as “the adult’s perfect model of a child,” a characterization echoed by psychologist Ernst Jentsch in his writings on dolls and their roles as vehicles for our collective hopes and anxieties, fears and bizarre emotional projections. Jentsch’s essay The Uncanny was foundational for roboticist Masahiro Mori—who argues that the psychological affinity of humans for inanimate objects which look like them turns to disgust as the resemblance becomes closer. Some artists included in the exhibition appropriate the human form directly—Janet Olivia Henry and Laurie Simmons, works by the majority of the artists featured are notable for their complete absence of the human form. They instead focus on the associated effects of humanity, like empty homes and disembodied apparel. Charles LeDray, Greer Lankton, and Christopher Gambino use clothing, either with a complete absence or an abstracted suggestion of the human form. Greg Carideo, Beverly Buchanan, Robert Gober, Alec Snow, and faith**** use found objects to create sculptures that reference domesticity, while carefully calling attention to the lack of any explicit human presence. On April 5th, artists wei, Allium, and Mason Youngblood will perform a series of sound and performance activations as further meditations on presence and absence.

The penumbra—the visible light surrounding a partial eclipse—aptly characterizes objects associated with but not directly representative of humans. For the purposes of the exhibition’s thesis, this term, typically used in astronomy, posits humanity as an opaque object casting a shadow across the works on display. The vacant contours left behind are open for viewer interpretation and projection. The objects are extensions of the human form, reflecting our bodies but abstracted through layers of reference and recreation–a distance echoed through the exhibition title, between Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and its unofficial namesake.

Jentsch describes the uncanny as “the unsettling ambiguity between the animate and the inanimate.” The exhibition approaches this definition from an alternate angle. How does the suggestion of human form, rather than something that is directly anthropomorphic, expand or even explode this notion? When viewing the unoccupied effects and structures deeply tied to our experience as human beings, do viewers actually encounter the uncanny? The exhibition asks visitors to draw their own conclusions. Are they in Mori’s Uncanny Valley—the Valley of the Dolls—or have they ventured somewhere beyond?

Curator bios: 

Peter Kelly is an independent curator, writer, and self-taught artist based in New York City. His focus is on contemporary art–in particular craft traditions, post-minimalism, installation, new media, and spirituality.

Austin Johnson is a musician and independent curator originally from Chicago now based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He received a B.A. in Art History from Yale where his scholarship and curatorial work focused on interrogations of colonial practices of the British Empire and Afromodernism. His experience with jazz and electronic music heavily influences his interests in curatorial practices and histories that underscore the contributions of performance art to postmodernism and contemporary decolonizing curatorial practices.

THE SKIRT: THE FOURTH WALL
A SOLO EXHIBITION by MINJUNG LEE
Curated by Annamariah Knox
March 7 - April 26, 2026
Opening Reception Saturday, March 7th, 2026, 6-8pm

Ortega y Gasset Projects is thrilled to present The Fourth Wall, a solo exhibition of work by artist Minjung Lee presented in the OyG Skirt and curated by co-director Annamariah Knox. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Saturday, March 7th, 6-8pm, and the installation will remain on view through Sunday, April 26th, 2026.

The Fourth Wall depicts the back sides of domestic furniture with spectacular, hand-drawn, lifelike accuracy. Made from densely-drawn color pencil and paper, these sculptural pieces bear an uncanny likeness to real objects. We see the backboards of an enormous cabinet with uneven screws, the uncovered battery on the back of a wall clock, and the white label residue on a dresser—all hand drawn with stunning realism.

Lee transforms The Skirt into a peripheral walkway around a room we can only look into from outside, viewing the backs of each furniture piece as we maneuver the space. Informed by her experiences as a foreigner, artist, and mother, Lee’s work makes visible that experience of marginal alienation from the comfort of a home—a place of belonging.

The pieces themselves are vibrantly textured and remarkable for their attendance to detail. Enormous backing boards of large furniture fill the space; the hand-drawn wood grains and size convey a sense of immediacy. Layers of dense pencil strokes create all of these surfaces, serving not only as a faithful rendering of texture but also as a bearing witness to the time spent living in this liminal zone, looking in. These meticulous depictions of texture, rendered by countless pencil strokes, reveal a life lived in an uncertain periphery. Lee simultaneously transforms The Skirt into both a negated auxiliary space, and also into its own domestic interior, lending a deeply empathic view of the experience of living on the outside.

Minjung Lee is a South Korean artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She creates theatrical trompe l'œil sculptures to examine the blurred boundary between the physical world and the realm of the mind, and the idea of narrative levels intersecting and sometimes dissolving into one another. She earned her BFA in sculpture from Seoul National University, Seoul, and her MFA in sculpture from Slade School of Fine Art, London. She has had solo exhibitions at Brooklyn Art Cluster, New York and Alternative Space Noon, Suwon, Korea. She attended Joshua Tree Highlands Residency. Her work has been exhibited in Massachusetts, New Jersey, London, and Seoul, and was featured in Maake Magazine, Sand Journal, and Manifest International Drawing Annual. https://www.leeminjung.com/

Annamariah Knox (b. New York City, NY), is an interdisciplinary artist working across textiles, soft sculpture, movement, and video. Her current work integrates videos of body gestures with fabric sculptures to explore the connection to one’s spirit, as it is accessed through the physical body. She received a B.A. in Art History and Theater from Bowdoin College, and a Masters in Fine Art from Cornell University. Recent exhibitions have been at Ortega y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, NY, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, and at the Soil Factory, in Ithaca, NY. Her show at Ortega y Gasset Projects was listed as a Must See in Artforum. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Soil Factory, Anderson Ranch, and Arrowmont School of Craft. She is currently based in New York City. 

Support the Future of OyG Projects with a Monthly Gift

Dear OyG Community,

Like many artist-run spaces, OyG Projects is navigating a challenging financial year. Since COVID, we've worked tirelessly to keep our doors open — drawing down our emergency reserves and steadily repaying an SBA loan that helped sustain us during the most uncertain times. While we’ve been fortunate to receive support in the past from grant makers, including the NEA, those sources are increasingly unpredictable in today’s rapidly shifting funding landscape.

Because of these challenges, we are currently faced with a $25,000 deficit for 2025. We must raise these funds in order to complete this year's programming, and to begin planning for our near future.

We are asking you to help sustain it

The most impactful way you can contribute is by becoming a monthly donor with a recurring gift of $5, $10, $25 or more a month.

We hope you will help us meet a tangible short-term goal:
75 monthly donors by the end of Summer. 

Recurring gifts provide us with the steady support we need to plan ahead, produce ambitious exhibitions, and keep our programs free and accessible to all.

We’re incredibly proud of the work we’ve done: providing a platform that has launched the careers of countless artists and bringing meaningful, challenging, and joyful exhibitions to our community. With your help, we can continue this vital work — and grow it.

 At OyG, we believe in building space for experimentation, dialogue, and community — especially for artists who have historically been excluded from mainstream platforms. Our artist-run model prioritizes innovation and quality over commercial outcomes, offering artists a rare opportunity to take risks and grow.

Thank you for 12 years of OyGoodness!

OyG Projects 

Clare Britt
Eric Hibit
Annamariah Knox
Xingze Li
Leeza Meksin
Nickola Pottinger
Adam Liam Rose
Zahar Vaks
Lauren Whearty