HARD ‘N’ SOFT
A group exhibition co-curated by art_works and Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, and hosted by Brodin Gallery in their new Los Angeles gallery space
Installation view. All artwork © the artists. Photography by Abigail Ogilvy Gallery.
Exhibition dates: February – April 2026
Location: Brodin Gallery, 1128 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
Artists: Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, Alison Croney Moses, Tallulah Dirnfeld, Yasmine Esfandiary, Brodin, Cassandra C. Jones, Wilhelm Neusser, Katrina Sánchez, Elspeth Schulze, Leigh Suggs, Kelly Witmer, and Natalia Wróbel
Summary: This exhibition is the product of collaboration by three organizations across two coasts, each united by a commitment to artist-centered practices, curatorial rigor, and the belief that how art reaches the public matters as much as the work itself.
About the exhibition: Hard ‘n' Soft explores the contested boundary between rigidity and flexibility in contemporary art, bringing together artists who deliberately subvert the expected properties of their materials. Through bronze rendered weightless, stone veiled in delicacy, fiber assuming geometric precision, and paint dissolving solid form, these works challenge the material hierarchies that have long structured art historical discourse.
The exhibition centers on artists who refuse categorical certainty. Rather, the assumed behaviors of media become sites of transformation: rigid materials yield and soften, solid forms turn fluid, soft substances achieve architectural presence. By inverting our expectations of how materials should perform, these artists invite us to reconsider not only the nature of their chosen media but the perceptual frameworks through which we encounter contemporary art itself.
Artwork crediting: Installation views of Hard ‘n' Soft, Brodin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. All artwork © the artists. Photography by Abigail Ogilvy Gallery.
