Marc Straus x Nueveochenta Gallery: Structures of Meaning

Marc Straus Gallery, New York, in partnership with Nueveochenta Gallery, Bogotá, is pleased to present Structures of Meaning, a group exhibition bringing together a selection of artists from its program. The exhibition offers a focused exploration of how contemporary practices engage material, form, and narrative as frameworks through which meaning is constructed, destabilized, and reimagined. 

Spanning sculpture, painting, textile, and object-based work, the exhibition centers on artists who challenge conventional hierarchies between object and image, function and abstraction. Across the presentation, materials are not merely vehicles for form, but active agents in shaping perception, inviting viewers into a space where interpretation remains open and layered. 

This approach is exemplified in the work of Edgar Orlaineta, whose sculptural compositions integrate found books within carved wooden structures. In works such as The Physics of Television (2025), systems of knowledge are reframed as fragmented and constructed, questioning the authority and legacy of modernist narratives. 

A parallel investigation into material transformation can be found in the work of Ozioma Onuzulike. Through processes of burning and erosion, pieces such as No Smoke Without Fire I (2008) embody cycles of destruction and renewal, where surface becomes a site of memory and material history. 

In contrast, the work of Jong Oh operates with a striking economy of means. His sculptural interventions, such as Brooklyn Heights (2026), articulate space through tension, balance, and line, rendering structure both visible and elusive, and inviting a heightened awareness of spatial perception. 

Elsewhere in the exhibition, Natasha Das’s textile compositions foreground labor, rhythm, and accumulation through hand-stitched surfaces, while Clive Smith’s painted book works collapse distinctions between image and object, embedding narrative within material form. Anna Leonhardt’s paintings, in turn, explore surface and color as thresholds between abstraction and presence, where form emerges and dissolves simultaneously. 

Together, these practices reflect a shared interest in how meaning is constructed through material and form, while resisting fixed interpretation. Presented within the context of Bogotá, Structures of Meaning also underscores an ongoing dialogue between New York and Latin America, one that is rooted in exchange, proximity, and the expansion of contemporary discourse across geographies.

This exhibition marks a continued collaboration between Marc Straus Gallery and Nueveochenta Gallery, bringing together a selection of artists whose practices resonate across contexts while maintaining distinct and rigorous formal languages.