Echopraxia - Lonnie Holley, mosie romney, Abbas Zahedi

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The A is for all

The R is for rendered

And the T is for truth

And the I is for internal

And the S is for self

Looking for all

Looking for all

All to be rendered

• Lonnie Holley (from Looking for All (All Rendered Truth, 2012)

Echopraxia typically refers to the involuntary imitation or repetition of physical movements, but the concept can be extended metaphorically to other domains, such as sound and art. Echopraxia might manifest as the unconscious replication or imitation of styles, techniques, or themes. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we incorporate elements of others through inspiration, influence, or explicit awareness.

The three artists in this exhibition—Lonnie Holley, mosie romney, and Abbas Zahedi—were introduced in 2023 through their invitation to The Mahler and LeWitt residency program, established around the former studios of Anna Mahler and Sol LeWitt, and The Torre Bonomo in Spoleto, Italy. After completing a separate residency in Mexico City with anonymous gallery, romney proposed a collaborative exhibition that reflects on their shared experiences and admiration.

The exhibition: Echopraxia, explores the complex ways in which individuals interact with and respond to stimuli in their environment, often reflecting a blend of conscious and unconscious processes.

romney's work involves the repetition or echoing of visual motifs, fantasy worlds, textures, and movements through poetry and paintings. Recurring patterns or pictorial gestures create a sense of cadence and continuity that echos the rhythmic quality of Lonnie Holley’s improvisational repetitions and variations. Holley creates a sense of organic flow and resonance throughout sculpture, painting, printmaking, filmmaking, music and sound. Similarly, in Zahedi's multidisciplinary practice, echopraxia manifests as a process of reverberating historical or cultural references, reimagining traditional forms of narratives in contemporary contexts.

Though mosie romney, Abbas Zahedi, and Lonnie Holley each approach their artistic practices in distinct ways, they share common threads in their engagement. Whether through the repetition of sensory elements, cultural references, or improvisational gestures, these artists invite viewers to participate in a dialogue that transcends individual expression, echoing the complexities of human experience.

About the artists:

Lonnie Holley (b. Birmingham, AL, 1950) lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. Holley’s work has been the subject of numerous museum solo exhibitions including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL (2023); Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, TX (2022); Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2021); Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA (2017); Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC (2015); Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL (2004), and many more. His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; among many others. Holley has been the subject of several documentary films, and his own directed short film I Snuck off the Slave Ship premiered at Sundance in 2019. A survey of his work will be published in a comprehensive monograph by Rizzoli Electa in 2024, featuring new scholarship and rare material from the artist’s extensive oeuvre.

mosie romney received their BFA in Visual Art from SUNY Purchase in 2016 and have completed residencies with the Home School, Hudson, NY; Pocoapoco, Oaxaca City, MX; Painters Painting Paintings, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Mahler & LeWitt Studios, Spoleto, Italy, among others. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Pond Society, Shanghai, China; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; and the Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China, among others. romney’s work has been included in exhibitions at White Columns, New York, NY; Nicodim, Bucharest, RO, Los Angeles, CA, and New York, NY; Greene Naftali, New York, NY; Gern en Regalia, New York, NY; Almine Rech, London, UK, and New York, NY; Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY, among others. Their work has been featured in articles in BOMB Magazine, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, T Magazine, and Juxtapoz, among others.

Abbas Zahedi (b. 1984, London, UK), studied medicine at University College London, before completing his MA at Central Saint Martins in 2019. Abbas blends contemporary philosophy, poetics, and social dynamics with performative and new-media modes.

Selected exhibitions include: Holding a Heart in Artifice, Nottingham Contemporary (2023); Metatopia 10013, Anonymous Gallery, New York (2022); The London Open 2022, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Postwar Modern, Barbican, London (2022); Testament, Goldsmiths CCA, London (2022); Temporary Compositions, Gallery 31 Somerset House, London (2021); Yarmonics 2021, Great Yarmoth, UK (2021); D.E.VALUATION, Mécènes du Sud, Montpellier (2021); 11 & 1, Belmacz, London (2021); Governmental Fires, FUTURA, Prague (2021); In Hindsight…, Bladr, Copenhagen (2020); Ouranophobia SW3, Chelsea Sorting Office, London (2020); How To Make A How From A Why?, Fire Station, South London Gallery, London (2020); Degree Show, Central Saint Martins, London (2019); The Age of New Babylon, Lethaby Gallery, London (2018); Diaspora Pavilion, (ICF), Wolverhampton Art Gallery (2018); appetite, Apiary Studios, London (2018); Diaspora Pavilion, (ICF), Palazzo Pisani a Santa Marina, Venice (2017); rb&hArts, Royal Brompton Hospital, London (2008).

Abbas has been the recipient of numerous awards including: the Frieze Artist Award (2022); the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists (2021); the Serpentine Galleries’ Support Structures for Support Structures (2021); Artangel, Thinking Time (2020); Jerwood Arts Bursary (2019); Aziz Foundation Academic Scholarship (2018); and Khadijah Saye Memorial Fund Scholarship (2017).

About the gallery:

anonymous is a platform for contemporary art, public art, and community involvement. The gallery has been committed to presenting ambitious projects featuring a global roster of emerging, mid-career, and historically significant artists. anonymous gallery returned to Mexico City in 2024 where it opened a space in the neighborhood of San Miguel Chapultepec, while simultaneously dedicated to its programing in New York.

Furthering the gallery's interest in developing dialogues between the United States and Latin America, the gallery invites artists to live in Mexico for a period production and exhibition. During the period of "residency", artists are encouraged to engage with the community, source materials, and conceive of auxiliary events.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:  

Lonnie Holley , Mosie Romney , Abbas Zahedi .