Commonwealth & Council presents Falling Towards Light, a solo exhibition incorporating light as substance and medium by NY-based artist Ethan Shoshan, hosted by Gallery 3209 in Culver City.

For his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Shoshan unpacks his grandfather’s timeworn suitcase from his immigration to the United States, full of forgotten dusty clothes and papers. Shoshan contemplates the description of his grandfather discovered in his great-uncle’s journal during World War II as a “moth,” considering light as a metaphor for flight (departure and arrival), and archives the unspoken and fractured narratives of one’s “family tree.” In the works on paper, droplets and swirls of clear enamel fleetingly cling to their surfaces. The visible colors on these fragile and deteriorating surfaces reflect upon and direct our vision to look through the materiality displayed.

The works—papers capturing light, magnetic sculptures substituting the body for relationships, a pair of stone hearts emphasizing the human condition—explore concepts of diaspora and quests for home, acceptance, prosperity, and community—the proverbial gold at the end of the rainbow.

Ethan Shoshan is a social ecologist who uses relational aesthetics to highlight the importance of everyday gestures. His last project, with it/EQ Community Arts Collective, Escape to Uranus,a queer sci-fi utopic odyssey focused on inverting racial and gendered societal roles through a multimedia exhibition and fashion performance. He has exhibited and performed on the streets and at the Kitchen, Aljira, PØST, Envoy Enterprises, Collective Unconscious, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Galeria De La Raza, Le Petit Versailles, 92nd St Y, and other venues. His previous projects have been reviewed in The New York Times, Art In America, BlackBook, The Brooklyn Rail, Artforum, and Washington Post, and have aired on Public Access TV. He is currently in residency at Commonwealth & Council and is curating an exhibition exploring individual archival histories, an adaptation of his last solo project at The Center for Book Arts in NYC for 2012.