failed seriousness is a national exhibition juried by artist Libby Paloma celebrating the comical, satirical, and subversive. From irony to visual tricks, the pieces in this show utilize humor to both critique culture and encourage viewers to find new, whimsical lenses to view the world. 

Featuring works across fiber, ceramics, mixed media, sculpture, painting, video, and photography, this exhibition challenges conceptions of mental illness, disability, gender, desire, and apathy.  Highlights include Angelo Spagnolo’s two-player fried mozzarella empathy implement, Evelyn Bi’s sculptural response to wanting her physical therapist to stop chatting with her coworkers, and Benjamin Stalwaker’s reimagination of what to break glass for in an emergency. Together, the 24 artists in failed seriousness invite audiences to laugh in the face of it all.

About the Juror

Libby Paloma (she/they, b. Santa Ana, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, installation, and performance. Embracing maximal aesthetics, humor, and craft traditions, Paloma transforms familiar materials into representational forms imbued with layered meaning. Immersive and labor-intensive, Paloma’s soft sculptures draw on craft practices and traditional sewing techniques passed down by the women in her Mexican and Chicana lineage. Through the conceptual framework of “world-softening,” Paloma explores intersectional identity and the radical potential of softness. Often activated through sensory engagement or performance, their works invite interaction and play, creating spaces of interconnection and reimagination.

Paloma has been an artist-in-residence at The Clemente (NY, NY), SPACE (Portland, ME), the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), and The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), and will be an artist-in-residence at Velvet Park (Brooklyn, NY) in the Fall–Winter 2025 cycle. Paloma’s work has been shown at El Museo del Barrio (NY, NY), Burlington City Arts (Burlington, VT), SOMArts (San Francisco, CA), SPACE Gallery (Portland, ME), Geary Contemporary (Millerton, NY), Silvermine Gallery (New Canaan, CT), SPRING/BREAK Art Show (NY, NY), Unprofessional Variety Show (NY, NY), the University of Southern Maine (Gorham, ME), and the Dorsky Museum (New Paltz, NY), where they received the Artist Purchase Award. In 2025, she Co-Chaired a panel at the College Art Association (CAA) titled Crip Time: Disabled Spacemaking in the Work of Queercrip Artists and spoke on panels at The International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA), the College Art Association (CAA), and Tufts University’s symposium How Do You Throw a Brick Through the Window… Their work will be exhibited in upcoming shows at Tufts University (Medford, MA), Stephan Street Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI), and Human Resources Gallery (Los Angeles, CA).

Before fully pursuing an art career, Paloma spent two decades working in education as a counselor, teacher, and Speech-Language Pathologist. Paloma holds a BA in Liberal Studies and an MS in Communicative Disorders from San Francisco State University, and an MFA from Parsons School of Design at The New School, where they received the President’s and University Full Scholarship.