Bortolami is pleased to present the tenth iteration of Artist / City with Frogs, an exhibition of new work by Brook Hsu and Louis Eisner in Dubois, Wyoming. As with each Artist / City project, the exhibition was developed and site chosen in close collaboration with the artists, with the venue functioning as both a novel context for the presentation of contemporary art and an integral component of the exhibition.

Staged within an operational laundromat in Dubois, the exhibition is a retelling of the ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes of the same name. Frogs, the play, tells the story of a katabasis – a descent to the mythological underworld – undertaken by Dionysus, the God of theater, to revive the late tragic playwright Euripides. Within the context of the exhibition, Hsu and Eisner view the buffalo skull, a permanent fixture of the entryway to the laundromat created by the artist Vic Lemmon, the establishment’s previous owner, as a metaphorical portal to the stage on which the fable comes to life. Rich with references to the history of art, both modern and classical, as well as nineteenth century American westward expansionism, the artworks in the exhibition serve as the artists’ own katabases, conduits in search of a greater understanding of our time.