ALIAS 

at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design at GW

August 22 - October 4, 2025

Opening reception: Thursday, September 18, 4 - 6 p.m.

Gallery 1 in The Corcoran's Flagg Building* at 500 17th St. NW, Washington, DC

Corcoran gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 1 - 5 p.m.

Originally exhibited at Art Enables in 2024,"ALIAS" populates the gallery space with large-scale, abstract sculptures that stand in for the personalities and artistic idiosyncrasies of their 12 makers. Art Enables is thrilled to present an expanded iteration of this exhibition which includes additional forms from the sculptures on the 19-foot-high gallery walls. Please join us in celebrating the artists' work in this beautiful, historic building and our exciting partnership with The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. 

More about "ALIAS": The sculptures—composed of layered and intersecting 2D shapes—sprung from a collaboration between Art Enables resident artists and artist and educator James Huckenpahler. Huckenpahler invited the artists to draw shapes that resonate with them, represent their personalities, or with which the artists feel a kinship. Designed by the artists as small paper maquettes, the sculptures were ultimately cut from cardboard on a CNC cutter at 12 times their original size. Sitting on the ground and suspended from the ceiling, the final works invite viewers to interact with them at the scale of the human body—or larger. Many works stretch as high or wide as 8 feet in a given direction. Encountering each sculpture in the gallery can feel like approaching a totem, monument, entity, or towering plant. Some have cloud-like, wiggly, or rounded personas, while others take more angular and architectural forms. In every case, the work intends to share some essence of the artist—each a playful, commanding alias to be met on its own terms.

Participating artists: A.T., Maurice Barnes, Jay Bird, Calvin “Sonny” Clarke, Toni Lane, Keith Lewis, Ceej Maples, Vanessa Monroe, Gillian Patterson, Dennis Quillin, Jamila Rahimi, Eileen Schofield

*Accessible entrance available on New York Ave.