Offspring 2024: Underbelly

An underbelly is the side of something normally unseen, sometimes a vulnerable area, at times corrupt, sordid or related to political malaise. More generally it refers to the underside of a body or a mass. Speaking to the word’s etymology, the prefix ‘under’—meaning beneath, below, underneath—suggests one convention that couples beneath with its other half, ‘belly’. Belly, on the other hand, was a Germanic word meaning leather bag, pouch, pod that in English evolved to mean a part of the body, also possibly connected to abdere, or ‘conceal’, as in the concealment of the viscera. At times underbelly is used erroneously or euphemistically in the sense of a seamy part of something. It also has certain conno tations that recall demimondes, half-worlds or underworlds.

While visiting the artists participating in De Ateliers in their studios over the last four months, I became fascinated with the various underbellies of their artworks, the stories emerging from beneath. The title arrived through a casual conversation with participant Leah Zhang as she described the understories informing her work. In parallel, I began hearing other participants speak about the building’s hidden floors and drainage systems and the support structures that exist to sus tain the institution—some of them becoming subjects of the artists’ studies. Perhaps due to the stormy nights spent here and the various weathering forces that shaped the time leading up to my biweekly Tuesday visits, I too felt the gravitational pull of the viscera.

Using ‘underbelly’ as a moniker for Offspring 2024, the annual showcase of works by De Ateliers participants, points to the generative potential of applying a framing device versus a curatorial theme—atypical, perhaps convenient, in light of the vast differences in the artists’ prac tices. Some might call this infrastructure: the curatorial chiselling and design work happening in the margins. Per usual, Offspring unfolds across the artists’ studios and everywhere in between at De Ateliers. The show represents a culmination of a process or a radical shifting, a reflexive pause, or a chance to build larger or softer, and it is here that varied subjects meet. Here, in the underbelly. —Jennifer Teets