Beyond Class featured the work of photographer Josh Aronson, and painter Brian Batt. The exhibition addresses a mutual interest in both artist’s bodies of work. Circumventing typical class signifiers to arrive at new perspectives, Aronson uses his photographs to draft an idea and image of the world as would be his ideal for the future. Batt, on the other hand, employs established motifs of our consumer society to reconfigure and readdress meaning.
Across his portraits of young Floridians, Aronson intentionally avoids class signifiers such as logos and status symbols. Aronson carefully selects his sitters, inviting local Miami young artists and activists who, like himself, work to engage the world in a critical and exciting way. His images overall embody an ideal of togetherness animated by ambitions for a utopian future.
In Batt’s oil paintings, typical signifiers of class are removed from their contexts. Batt creates ‘intersecting portraits’. Each hand-painted, hyper realistic composite images of vintage magazine cut outs juxtapose and combine seemingly disparate elements. He reorganizes visual cues celebrating individuality and diversity, merging and devising a unique beauty.
Josh Aronson (born 1994, Toronto, Canada) is a Canadian-American photographer based in Miami, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Northwestern University. His work has been written about in the British Journal of Photography, Dazed, Vogue Italia, Document Journal, and others. In 2021, Aronson was named the “Best of Miami: Best Photographer” by the Miami New Times. In 2020, his first photo book “Tropicana” was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, University of Miami’s Special Collections, Miami-Dade Library’s Vasari Project, and others. Selected solo and two-person exhibitions include “Beyond Class” (2022), Club Gallery, Miami, Florida; “Tropicana” (2021), Miami Design District, Miami, Florida; “I Thought About Posting This” (2019), Congruent Space, Chicago, Illinois; “With Mine Dyed Blue” (2018), Space Place, Nizhniy Tagil, SVE, Russia. Selected clients include A24, Adidas, Art Basel, Chanel, Dior, Hinge, Kate Spade, Off-White, SSENSE, Ulta Beauty and Vrbo. Selected publications include Allure, Bloomberg, Cultured, Dazed, Financial Times, Glamour, i-D, Teen Vogue and The New York Times.
Baker—Hall is a contemporary art gallery founded by Amanda Baker—Hall in 2024. It is the successor to her previous project, Club Gallery. The gallery aims to promote emerging and mid-career artists through a fresh curatorial approach, while also offering comprehensive art advisory services. Baker—Hall specializes in painting and sculpture across narrative and non-objective styles, with a focus on collaborating with private collectors and prominent corporate institutions. The gallery boasts a robust exhibition schedule, featuring a minimum of eight rotating exhibitions each year.
Baker—Hall is a proud member of NADA.
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