In her first major solo exhibition in the USA, Mexican artist Frieda Toranzo Jaeger explores queer freedom and the creation of safe spaces in response to a possible apocalyptic future.

The exhibition, which is titled “Autonomous Drive”, features multi-faceted work inspired by 15th-century European altar paintings. In addition to referencing the sculptural forms and religious symbolism of that period, she also examines the expansion of Western colonialism of that time as well, but- more importantly- “reclaims and expands these references, creating imagined constructions for a world after decolonisation,” as the exhibition’s programme notes explain.

Furthermore, the notes say: “From 15th-century altar paintings to the interiors of hybrid cars, Toranzo Jaeger’s subjects speak to the many vehicles for continued colonisation and control of vast territories, including outer space. In Toranzo Jaeger’s depictions, however, she imbues these vehicles of colonisation and the worlds they inhabit with the potentiality of love as an antidote to colonial thinking. In this sense, Toranzo Jaeger’s work transforms spaces of technological domination. Leveraging hybridity and automation, her paintings signal ontological shifts and queer becomings that resist existing power structures”.

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger’s “Autonomous Drive” at MoMA PS1 is on view until March 13, 2023.