May Madness: Top Art Exhibitions to Check Out in Europe

Monica Kim Garza’s exhibition showcases robust women of color in quasi-self-portraits engaging in everyday activities such as lounging, playing sports, smoking, drinking, and soaking up the sun. In “Raisin,” her alter-egos bask on the beach, donning quaint swimming caps and barely-there g-string bikinis, playing in the surf, swimming laps, and resting under parasols. Kim Garza’s work is subtle and nuanced, capturing the experience of millennial women, particularly the theme of aging, with gentle irony and sharp wit. Her figures loom larger than life, yet their backgrounds dissolve into countless brushstrokes, emphasizing the women’s sensuality, humor, and ambiguity as a testament to the body as the timeless site for the expression of human emotion. The exhibition is both monumental and intimate, with an unfettered utopia of female joy and leisure, punctuated by a feeling of melancholy. Despite the cheerful and frivolous nature of her work, the surface of Kim Garza’s art reveals an artist who excels in capturing the subtle nuances of everyday life, evoking a sense of longing for something or someone beyond the frame. The exhibition is a celebration of female joy and leisure, interrupted by a feeling of melancholy that speaks to the human experience of life and love wearing us down, and yet we always come back for more.