Paola Siri Renard: Midway Kin

“Midway Kin” is the first solo exhibition by Paola Siri Renard, presented at Romero Paprocki Gallery from 18 October to 22 November 2025. The exhibition brings together two sculptural ensembles that probe constructions of the body, ornamentation, and Western architectural traditions.

The central group, which lends the exhibition its title, takes inspiration from equestrian monuments as emblems of power and discipline. Five life-size horse legs stand at the threshold of human and animal anatomies, conjuring fragmented, post-identitarian bodies. One side of each sculpture is rendered in precise anatomy, while the other bears hybrid ornamentation. Suspended on structures recalling zippers or slaughterhouse systems, they unsettle ideas of normativity, monstrosity, and the ordering of bodies.

A second series introduces five wall-based works inspired by earring clasps, scaled to the size of a bust. Normally hidden, the clasp becomes a metaphor for fugitivity — a discreet support that connects without imposing. By revealing this element of adornment, the sculptures suggest silent presences and unspectacular acts of resistance. Each is attached by a blown-glass tube, a form hovering between display case and incubator, invoking histories of exhibition and modes of looking.

Together, these two series place anatomy and ornament in tension, articulating a speculative sculptural space where archive and fiction intertwine, and where forms oscillate between monumentality and fragility, visibility and disappearance.