This exhibition at Secession features new works by SoiL Thornton, exploring identity politics, systems, and the art world's conditions. The show includes a large inflatable sculpture, photography, and various objects that playfully engage with language and meaning.
SoiL Thornton's exhibition 'Choosing Suitor' at Secession delves into the artist's engagement with identity politics, social systems, and the art world's inherent structures. Thornton, who identifies as non-binary and works across painting, sculpture, photography, and installation, uses these systems as neutral tools for artistic decisions, allowing them to recede behind the structural setting. The exhibition is marked by a prominent inflatable sculpture titled 'Husband Chair (SV),' which intentionally obstructs the main entrance, forcing an alternative entry and prompting reflection on perspective shifts and institutional accessibility.
The presentation includes various new works, such as photo prints and series, site-specific interventions like mirrored construction barriers, and objects featuring playful linguistic elements. A notable series of Tinder profiles, presented against abstract color fields, challenges the cultivation of persona common on social media. "Name that Grisaille" features handwritten names on painted sheets, questioning the derivation of identity from names and the commercialization of signatures. Thornton critiques "heteronormative normality" through conventional associations of names and colors, proposing a vibrant neon green as a neutral alternative, reminiscent of "Green Screens" used for background substitution. Accompanying the exhibition is a digital publication and an Instagram account that draws analogies between Tinder and the art world as "marketplaces of attention."