Sasha Gordon’s first-ever visit to Miami this month was a whirlwind. The Brooklyn-based artist was in town for the opening of “Sasha Gordon: Surrogate Self” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami—her first solo museum exhibition—and she made the most of it: Between observing the show’s installation, meeting local collectors, supporting friends presenting work of their own during Art Week, and going out at night, she hardly had a moment to catch her breath. “I was supposed to be there for nine days, but I didn’t realize how exhausted I would be from socializing,” she tells Vogue. “It felt like a theme park or something.” (She ended up settling for eight.)
But Gordon’s schedule was crazy even before she went down to Miami; she has been go-go-go since her third year at the Rhode Island School of Design, when she began showing her large-scale, vividly rendered oil paintings in galleries and at art fairs. (Gordon landed her first solo show in New York just one year out of school, at Jeffrey Deitch in 2022.) Now, the 25-year-old’s work is not only at the ICA Miami, but part of the collections at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and LACMA, too.
The curation of “Surrogate Self” (by Alex Gartenfeld, the ICA Miami’s Irma and Norman Braman Artistic Director) combines Gordon’s years-long examinations of alienation, vulnerability, and identity through hyper-stylized self-portraits with new works riffing on the concept of a body’s objectification: While in one painting, Gordon’s head disappears into a lamp, in another her skin has been replaced with what looks like a knitted textile, effectively transforming her figure into a rag doll. (The detail on Gordon’s canvases is uncanny.) “It’s kind of a mix of anthropomorphism, reincarnation, and disguising oneself,” Gordon says of the riveting later works. “I am so obsessed with portraiture, but I also think there are these emotions I have that almost feel not human. So I want to portray these feelings through other objects and materials.”
A big group of her loved ones flew in for the exhibition’s opening (and raucous after-party) on December 5, including Gordon’s extremely proud mom and dad. “My parents get very happy with my openings,” the artist says. “It’s really cute.” But after all that excitement (and untold piña coladas), she is grateful for the chance to slow down a little.
“I’ve been kind of working nonstop since I graduated, and I do think I need a second to breathe so I can have the work transform,” Gordon reflects. “My biggest fear is the work getting monotonous.” So, she plans to focus on drawing for a bit, and see movies and watch cartoons and go to other artists’ exhibitions—in short, just to “live my life a little bit to get inspired.” A worthy idea indeed.
“Sasha Gordon: Surrogate Self” is on view at the ICA Miami through March 10, 2024. See snapshots from Gordon’s madcap visit to Miami below.
