In anticipation of the first Gordon Robichaux exhibition of Janet Olivia Henry's work in 2024, the gallery presents an important historical diorama that was recently shown at MoMA in Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces and a new hanging talisman sculpture. On view with a series of Otis Houston Jr.'s collages with social and political subjects made in 1988-89 when the artist was incarcerated; a group of recent drawings by Sanou Oumar, whose work will be included in the upcoming 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennial; and a selection of Ken Tisa's intimate paintings made in response to the early years of the AIDS crisis during the 1980s.

Visit the Independent New York viewing room.

Janet Olivia Henry

Ritual, 1982-1983

mixed-media installation with a doll of Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek with the makeup removed, wearing a Barbie robe, socks with slippers, and scarf; miniatures of a fan, books, camera, apples, cheese, shells and starfish, wooden chair, benches, stools, baskets, pots, watering can, gardening tools, staghorn fern, orchids, philodendron, gesneriads, rabbit’s foot ferns, night-blooming cereus, cacti, serrated-leaf plant, oval-leaf plant, crassula, Boston fern, Easter cactus, and a palm, 20.25 x 20.5 x 15.75 inches

Janet Olivia Henry

BIFURCATE, 1983-2023

Braided and woven waxed brown nylon thread, white pot metal cylinders, and huishi from Kenya, black commercial glass seeds, Fulani marriage beads (Czech glass teardrops) from Mali, brass and copper bicone (kirdi) from the Cameroon and Ethiopia, Guinea Conakry coconut shell discs, Afghani leather charms, carved wooden beads from Brazil, Tagua nut sliced drops and chips from Brazil, African amber, copper flat rectangle, seed shells and caps, silver bicone from Kenya, braided waxed red linen thread, Bond paper, clear vinyl, white glass from Ghana, red white hearts made in Venice and traded in the Philippines, red dyed coral, white glass spheres, 39 x 7.5 x 7.5 inches