Carlos Blanco_Exhalations, The Magic Wand & La Voragine/Turmoils
Spanish-Colombian multidisciplinary artist Carlos Blanco transforms The Slit into a breathing space where air becomes both medium and metaphor. Through three interconnected projects—Exhalations, The Magic Wand, and La Vorágine / Turmoils—Blanco orchestrates a meditation on movement, territory, and the political turbulence that defines our contemporary moment.
At the heart of Blanco's practice lies a fascination with air as life's most fundamental element. His work captures air in its dual nature: as the breath that sustains us and as the force that carries destruction across borders. Using inflatables, drawings, and performance, he creates works that literally breathe—expanding and contracting, filling and emptying—mirroring the rhythms of existence itself.
Blanco's exhibition arrives at a moment when our relationship to information, movement, and political reality feels increasingly volatile. His works function as pressure valves, releasing the accumulated tension of living in an era defined by the "immediacy of information technology." They ask urgent questions: How do we breathe in a world choked by conflict? What does it mean to move freely when borders are militarized? How do we process the constant stream of crisis that flows through our screens?
In transforming The Slit into an environment where air circulates through sculptural forms, Blanco creates space for reflection within the rush of contemporary life. His exhibition becomes an oxygen mask for our political moment—offering the viewer a chance to pause, breathe, and consider the forces that shape our shared atmosphere.
The artist's interest in "conditioning air for a specific purpose" extends beyond the gallery walls, suggesting that art itself might serve as a life-support system for critical thinking in an age of information overload. Through works that inhale global tensions and exhale artistic response, Blanco demonstrates how contemporary art can provide essential breathing room for both individual contemplation and collective resistance.
RSVP Opening Saturday 13, 2025 6pm-9pm
Book Release and Reading_ The Way of Wildfires and Hard Luck Believers
The Slit is honored to host the release and reading of Brian D. Cinadr’s much anticipated second novel, The Way of Wildfires and Hard Luck Believers.
"Brian David Cinadr’s The Way of Wildfires and hard luck believers is an achingly poetic meditation on the transient nature of love, luck, and life itself. Set against the backdrop of Los Angeles—a city both intoxicating and indifferent—Cinadr weaves a narrative that feels as timeless as the tides and as urgent as the wildfires that rage throughout the novel. The writing is visceral and evocative, balancing a raw, streetwise sensibility with moments of breathtaking lyricism.
His protagonist, Michael, is a man both haunted and defined by his past, struggling to reconcile what was with what remains. Through a deeply introspective lens, Cinadr captures the contradictions of modern existence—the push and pull of fate, the beauty found in the mundane, and the inescapable weight of regret. What sets The Way of Wildfires apart is its ability to immerse the reader in the very soul of its setting. From the neon glow of Chinatown restaurants to the smoky, salt-tinged air of California’s burning hills, the novel pulses with atmosphere. Every scene, every moment, is steeped in longing—whether for a lost love, a second chance, or simply an answer to the unknowable.
At its core, this novel is about survival—not just of fire, but of the emotional wreckage we leave in our wake. It is a book that lingers long after the final page, a poignant reminder that we are all shaped by the flames we endure.
Cinadr has crafted something truly remarkable: a novel as relentless, as unpredictable, and as devastatingly beautiful as the wildfires themselves. Highly recommended."
— Liz Dubelman, Editor & Contributor to What Was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories (St. Martin’s Press), founder of VidLit, Published in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and NPR.
l o r e_ Amber Imrie x Arden Carlson
The Slit is pleased to present lore, a two-person exhibition featuring artworks by Amber Imrie and Arden Carlson.
Both artists, rooted in rural Arkansas, interrogate the multiplicity of queer identity through the lens of Southern landscapes and traditions. Their shared disposition as queer artists navigating the challenges and beauty of remote living shapes this exhibition, blending photography, textiles, video, and sculptural elements.
This exhibition challenges conventional narratives of nature as a "pure" refuge, presenting it instead as a site of entanglement where belief, identity, and practicality collide. Through a combination of Southern translation and speculative imagination, the works examine the friction and fluidity of queerness within a space often considered immutable.
Amber Imrie ( b. 1988) Imrie's work engages with the cultural sediment of the rural South, examining the erosion of identity, memory, and land over time. Using a blend of photography, fabric, text, sculpture, and video, they weave together personal and collective histories to investigate the complexities of belonging. The works in their exhibition reflect years of exploration into themes such as isolation, community, resilience, and the collision of queer identity with Southern life. Through this practice, Imrie reveals the quiet, often invisible dimensions of rural queerness and its complex relationships with history, environment, and domesticity. By incorporating poetry, imagery, and objects, they explore how queer lives and landscapes endure, resist, and evolve in the face of cultural and environmental erasure.
Amber's work has been collected by the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, Bates Museum, and many wonderful private collectors. They have a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from Stanford University. Imrie has been grateful to have received the following grants and awards, Anita Fowel Award in Photography(2018), Murphy Cadogan Award (2017), Artist 360 Award (2023), Creative Exchange Award (2023).
Arden Carlson (b. 1997) is a Kentucky born artist & farmhand. They earned a MFA degree in Sculpture from the University of Arkansas, finding a resulting home within the surrounding Ozark community. Arden’s artistic practice is characterized by a unique blend of traditional woodworking techniques and graphite drawings, allowing them to navigate the delicate spaces that exist in the collision of reality and imagination, ground and sky.
Notable recent participations include a residency with the Wassaic Artist Project and the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.
Screening_‘Dancing in A-Yard’
Manuela Dalle’s feature documentary, Dancing in A-Yard, offers a profound exploration of healing, transformation and self-discovery through art. The film chronicles the journey of ten young men incarcerated at Lancaster State Prison’s A-Yard as they participate in a contemporary dance class led by renowned French Choreographer Dimitri Chamblas. Through movement and artistic expression, these men challenge prevailing stereotypes of masculinity and incarceration, embarking on a powerful path of self-repair and communal connection.
Following the screening, artist and dance program participant, Kenneth Webb will lead a discussion and healing circle with director Manuela Dalle, choreographer Dimitri Chamblas and the audience.
UNFILTERED by Lens On Life
Unfiltered is an exhibition celebrating the transformative voices of emerging photographers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Iraq, Jordan and New York City.