Amidst one of the most politically fraught years in recent times, perpetual on-the-ground protests challenge wars, authoritarianism, and a long list of utterly broken realities.
Ivester Contemporary exhibits a different form of defiance.
Curated by Assistant Director Savannah Diaz, “Cuídate (Take Care)” focuses on care as an act of resistance, presenting the self-soothing rituals of 29 artists from Texas and beyond. The result is a maximalist’s heaven of form, medium, color, and concept.
Among the floor-to-ceiling arrangement of works in the Canopy gallery is a surrendering into pleasure and play – which, as the show suggests, can be its own form of protest. I’d argue that the protest here is twofold: nurturing that manifests through play, and play that resists the demand to produce. This isn’t self-care in service of productivity or perfect skin; it’s care that is simultaneously indulgent and generous, turned inward toward the self, and outward toward the forces that seek to undo us.
The most perfect example of this lies in the work of the one and only pipe cleaner artist Montrel Beverly. As I made my way to the corner of the packed gallery, I found Beverly seated, facing his work Super Smash Bros. Peeking over his shoulder, I discovered a simulacrum scenario: the artist playing the game itself in front of his pipe cleaner version, hung just above. Beverly handed me a controller, and we played until he kindly let me win his 500th(!) game. As that number suggests, the work reflects just how consistent this form of care is for the artist. It’s jovial both in practice and in material. Beverly takes full advantage of the pipe cleaner’s endless possibilities, with characters leaping off the platform and right out of the frame, reminding us that any material can be an empowering return to our imaginative, whimsical intuitions.
This isn’t self-care in service of productivity or perfect skin; it’s care that is simultaneously indulgent and generous.
If a video game is on one end of the spectrum of care in the 30-plus works presented in “Cuídate,” then a plinth of polymer clay sits on the other. Annie May Johnston’s Protein Fibers includes a pillar of the substance topped with strands of hair, glow-in-the-dark stars, and plastic beads meticulously arranged in a halo. It conjures the kind of tactile memory you didn’t realize you’d forgotten: a 6-year-old moment of tinkering, where time dissolves and imagination takes hold. And while it is quieter than Beverly’s pipe cleaner saga, Protein Fibers shares that same commitment to instinctive, pure action. Here, stringing stars in your hair is a ritual of youth, a moment to let the world’s misfortunes slip away, just for a moment – just long enough to rest, so we can return to the resistance, ready.
Diaz’s vision for “Cuídate” isn’t to be overlooked. Selecting over two dozen works from an open call is a feat, and one the curator takes on willingly in the name of inclusion. When asked why she chose to include so many, she replied, “There are so many artists and never enough walls in this city!” In this way, the titular phrase extends to Diaz’s love for the Austin arts scene, where her care for the community’s talent is reflected in the exhibition’s maximalism. At one point, I found myself tripping over the green turf of Karen Woodward’s Man Resting(on speed dial to heaven) and facing the pink shower curtain assembled as part of Victoria’s 4pm on a sunday – all while a DJ spun Bad Bunny in the background.
Somehow it all made perfect sense. It wasn’t cluttered or overflowing. The excess was intentional, transforming Ivester Contemporary’s white cube into a haven of vibrant, layered expression. It reminded me that this playful, generous approach to curation and artmaking is how we take care of one another – and, in doing so, offer radical blueprints for how we might refuse the systems that ask us to shrink.
“Cuídate (Take Care)”
Ivester Contemporary
Through August 30
This article appears in August 8 • 2025.