The three-dimensional figures cavort with the thickened and filigreed waves of memory and emotion. They emerge from the wall, flicker across the screen, mesmerizing.

The hand-drawn lines and patterned shadings are familiar to fans of street art over the last two decades, but this goddess seems so real, so haunted. Swoons’ Cicada installations at Deitch Gallery on 76 Grand Street are in movement, fluttering in your periphery, stories from her past melting into motifs and fragments of her memories, and quite possibly yours.

Cicada is a life cycle, and it glimmers in the darkness as you turn. In this collection of drawings, installations, and film you finally reach the pain, the trauma, the escapist desire for divinity to save us. Swoon introduces the fluttering mystic figures into her new stop motion film, again your memories are triggered, but it’s hers that are on display – while they continue to hide before us.
Even though she’s not here with you, it feels like Swoon’s never been so close and so theatrical, even when she sailed the Switchback Seas with this same journeyman Deitch. Her own odyssey continues to be rebirthed in so many surprising ways; often at the center of the stage, and still behind the wings.









Swoon “Cicada” exhibition ran at Deitch Gallery in New York from Nov 14, 2019 – February 1, 2020.
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
“Literally, the art had to leave the museum and come out into the street, as art in public spaces is the only art on display during these strange times,” says photographer Nika Kramer about this new ...
“How exactly does one become an authority on questioning authority?” we asked in our 2011 interview with Shepard Fairey called “Too “Street” For Corporate, Too Corporate For The Street”. Even though h...
Friendly reminder that the Delusional Art Competition is coming up and if you are going to submit your artwork to this years big shoo with Jonathan Levine Projects you have about 53 days. How Long? ...
Street Artist Add Fuel is exporting azulejo to the rest of the world. Slightly differently than they did in previous centuries. Add / Fuel - 1 - Monograph. Published by Diogo Machado. Portugal 2018...
OverUnder recently traveled to Las Vegas and LA to do some mural commissions for a large brand and he tells us he was having a bit of guilt for selling his soul to the devil to pay the bills. That was...