The enchanting lure of a hole, the tender scuttle of a bug, the mysterious vibrations of the forest, the pungent bloom of a corpse flower, the mutability of our fleshy bodies in decay—these are things that have fascinated and bonded my years of friendship with Geena Brown. Our co-curated exhibition “The Tale Their Terror Tells” at Lyles & King in New York began as a conversation between friends with a mutual passion for all things dark and grotesque. At the beginning of the pandemic, Geena and I found comfort and joy in watching the horror films that captivated us from adolescence to adulthood (taking inventory in the form of a rather obsessive google spreadsheet that continues to grow). While many of our friends and family found our embrace of horror in a time of peril to be masochistic, we found it generative, playful, and cathartic. The intersection of horror and ecology would become an important source for us to think imaginatively about our survival despite feelings of overwhelming doom and terror. Using the concept “eco-horror,” (as it is applied in film, literature, and visual art) allows us to articulate the collective anxieties of our time and reckon with the daunting uncertainty of our world in crisis. The 23 artists included in the exhibition are guided by the strange, pushing the boundaries of reality and questioning what it means to be human. This kind of curiosity is similar to a child’s sensitivity to the mystifying and unexplainable dimensions of the world. This group of artists reveals a world of haunted topographies crawling with ghosts that whisper tales of desire and fear, casting shadows that trace the violent cost of modern “progress.” These artists practice a kind of radical imagining that calls attention to the vibrant interconnections embedded in everyday life that carry possibilities of resurgence and consider our individual and collective responsibilities. The deep friendship and mutual admiration that nurtured this exhibition speak to the ecofeminist values that frame our curatorial practices and ideas. “The Tale Their Terror Tells” is just one iteration of an ongoing inquiry into eco-horror that will continue to evolve as we leap towards the perils and possibilities of our future.

Artists included in the exhibition:
Angel Lartigue, Astrid Terrazas, Chris Dorland, Chris Hood, Dan Herschlein, Danny Moynihan, Erin Jane Nelson, Farley Aguilar, Felipe Baeza, Hings Lim, Jessica Taylor Bellamy, Josh Kline, Karl Haendel, Kathy Ruttenberg, Kiyan Williams, Lila de Magalhaes, Marlene McCarty, Max Hooper Schneider, Miljohn Ruperto, Mira Schor, Sarah Jérôme, Xie Lei and Zoe Leonard.

Lyles & King 
21 Catherine St & 19 Henry St
New York, NY 10038
On view through August 22, 2022