RUBBLE HEART: New Sculpture at TIGHTROPE: THE MIDTERM ITCH

RUBBLE HEART

group exhibition

TIGHTROPE: THE MIDTERM ITCH

WhiteBox Portable @ MTA

curated by Juan Puntes
WhiteBox artistic director

I am participating in this group exhibition with my recent sculpture RUBBLE HEART.

The exhibition places work by participating artists within a public setting connected to movement, access, civic life, and contemporary art. WhiteBox Portable @ MTA extends WhiteBox’s exhibition activity beyond a fixed gallery structure and into the daily environment of New York City.

exhibition context

TIGHTROPE: THE MIDTERM ITCH

group exhibition responding to the American election season and to democracy itself

rituals
contradictions
spectacles
anxieties
resilience

satire
irony
humour
metaphor
caricature
poetic imagination

Not an exhibition about parties or candidates.

WhiteBox Portable @ MTA places the work inside one of New York City's busiest public art venues.

Commuters and passersby encounter the exhibition as part of the daily commute.

WhiteBox exhibition information

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RUBBLE HEART

RUBBLE HEART

Concrete, stone, and paper.

9 × 11 × 10

2026

In 2026, Byrnes revisits her sculptural practice, drawing inspiration from rubble. In bearing witness to Gaza's destruction and the natural disaster rooted in climate change in Nepal. "Rubble and wood fragments are a powerful GLOBAL LANGUAGE of the oppressed and the oppressor."

I am exhibiting RUBBLE HEART as one work within the group show.

The work is presented in relation to a wider practice built from painting.

Painting remains the foundation.

From painting, I move through:

sculpture
performance
writing
film
documentary
activism
curation
installation
social and ecological projects

The movement between forms is not separate from the painting process.

It extends the same working conditions:

matter
pressure
damage
accumulation
interruption
residue
repair
change

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material position

My work uses natural, found, reclaimed, biodegradable, and environmentally responsible materials.

Materials may carry histories before entering the studio.

Discarded matter.

Packaging.

Wood fragments.

Aluminum.

Earth.

Stains.

Surface residue.

Broken or altered elements.

These materials are not treated only as waste to be removed from view.

Decay and discarded matter remain active.

They can hold evidence of use, exposure, extraction, consumption, and time.

They can interrupt a controlled surface.

They can alter the direction of a work.

They can retain an earlier life while entering another structure.

This position connects painting, sculpture, and performance.

The material is not neutral.

The material participates.

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body

The body is a central medium in my practice.

It is present in performance.

It is present in painting through gesture, weight, movement, contact, limitation, repetition, and duration.

It is present in sculpture through the physical relationship between object, space, scale, and movement.

My work includes long-running questions concerning:

embodiment
identity
disability
self-perception
transformation
intention
vulnerability
social visibility

The body is not treated as a fixed category.

It is a condition.

A site of knowledge.

A changing material.

A point of contact with other bodies, environments, systems, and histories.

My ongoing IHaveABody project addresses having a body rather than being defined by one. The project includes performance, documentary work, interviews, and film.

The questions continue across different forms.

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ecology

Ecological concerns enter the work through material choices and through subject.

Nature is not used only as an image or background.

It is a condition within which the work is made.

My practice addresses ecological destruction, urban decay, sustainability, and the relationship between human activity and the Earth.

Works and projects including Outline for a Tree, Under a Tree, Rock, and I Dreamt I Was The Ocean extend this field of inquiry through painting, performance, installation, and documentation.

The studio remains connected to larger systems:

extraction
disposal
consumption
pollution
land
water
air
nonhuman life
urban development

The use of reclaimed, found, natural, and biodegradable materials is part of this position.

Not a decorative detail.

Not a separate environmental category.

A working condition.

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social practice

The work also develops through questions of power and social structure.

Disability.

Feminism.

Colonization.

War.

Social justice.

Environmental responsibility.

The politics of the body.

The relationship between the individual and the collective.

Painting provides a starting point for these concerns.

Performance places them in duration.

Sculpture gives them physical presence.

Writing records and reorganizes them.

Curation creates conditions for other artists and other forms of address.

My curatorial work includes TACTICAL STREAM, a recurring group exhibition and platform for artists developing activist voices and working toward social change.

The forms vary.

The questions remain connected.

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exhibition record

RUBBLE HEART

recent sculpture

TIGHTROPE: THE MIDTERM ITCH

group exhibition

WhiteBox Portable @ MTA

curated by Juan Puntes
WhiteBox artistic director

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artists

group exhibition

Jenny Polack

Brian Bellott

Amy Stoker

Gregory Sholette

Marni Kotak

Rirkrit Tiravanija & Tomás Vu

Eleni Mylonas

Noah Fischer

Arlene Rush

Paolo Javier & David Mason

Susana Sulic

Mac Adams

Moez Surani & Nina Leo

Paul Pissarro & Jesse Do aka Church of Conceptual Art

Annabel Daou

Marcos Dimas

Theresa Byrnes

Jim Costanzo

Joyce Raimondo

Jason File

Marie Christine Katz

David Borawski

Anna McNeary

Craig Kane

Patricia Dahlman

Jan Arlt

Renzo Ortega

Maggie Reilly

Aileen Bassis

Mike Estabrook

Lori Ortiz

Frank Saïssi

Susan Hoeltzel

Eldon Garnett

Cris Gianakos

Julia Justo

Robert Ladislas Derr

Anki King

Barbara Rosenthal

Ellen Alt

Kristen Danckert

Mike Petrakis

Lili White

Caroline McManus

Tamara Garvey

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event details

Opening Reception: October 2, 5:00–8:00 PM

Exhibition: October 2–November 3

Location: WhiteBox Portable @ MTA, Times Square–42nd Street Subway Station, 8th Avenue Corridor, Unit 17, above the A, C & E lines, New York, NY 10018

Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11:00–6 pm; email info@whiteboxny.org; call (917) 771-2230

WhiteBox

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access

The exhibition is presented at WhiteBox Portable @ MTA.

The venue places contemporary art within a public transit environment and connects the exhibition to the movement of commuters, passersby, and city residents.

The work is part of a group exhibition.

RUBBLE HEART is one sculpture.

I am one participating artist.

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