Julia Haft-Candell: The Infinite Library

The Infinite Library presents the multidimensional work of Los Angeles-based artist Julia Haft-Candell, comprising large-scale ceramic sculptures, drawings, paintings, and animations. Ever evolving, The Infinite references an alternative universe complete with its own values, ideology, and visual language, which is played out in Haft-Candell’s expansive four-part installation and documented in her The Infinite: Glossary of Terms and Symbols.

Manifesting a formal display, the first aspect of Haft-Candell’s installation presents large-scale ceramic work depicting hands interlocking with knots, chains, and infinity symbols presented on a massive stepped platform. These works articulate the expanding lexicon of her Glossary, further explored in the exhibition’s second element comprising image and text-based drawings and a stop-motion animation. The third aspect comprises an archive documenting the work of The Infinite School, an experimental art school that Haft-Candell runs from her studio, which challenges conventional institutional practices and pedagogies. The final element takes the form of an alternative participatory library with shelving that doubles as seating stocked with books selected by over seventy artists. Channeling the generative ethos of The Infinite, the library, which functions as a respite for collective and solitary contemplation, will host divination readings as well as discussions on art, speculative fiction, the environment, and craft throughout the exhibition.

Included in the library are two central texts inspirational to Haft-Candell’s thinking—Octavia Butler’s post-apocalyptic novel The Parable of the Sower (1993) and Ursula K. Le Guin’s visionary essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986). In Butler’s future, which is dramatically impacted by climate change, the protagonist goes in search of Earthseed, a religion whose God shape-shifts through individual worship. While Butler reimagines the future, Le Guin reinterprets the human origin story replacing the spear, as the first known tool, with the carrier bag. By substituting a vessel purposed for gathering food, objects, and stories in place of an aggressive device, Le Quin reasserts the power of community. Privileging storytelling as a creative force, Le Guin reminds us, as Donna Haraway has remarked, that “it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what concepts we think to think other concepts with,”^[1] values embedded in Haft-Candell’s exhibition, The Infinite Library.

The Infinite Library is curated by Ciara Ennis, Director, de Saisset Museum. The exhibition originated at Pitzer College Art Galleries, Pitzer College (September – December 2023) and has been expanded at the de Saisset.

^[1] Donna Haraway, “Introduction,” in Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (London: Ignota, 2019), 10.

Julia Haft-Candell (b. Oakland, CA, 1982) works in ceramics, bronze, drawing and painting, writing, and animation. She challenges and expands upon traditional techniques to change systems of thought and build new cultural histories, guided by an ever-evolving personal philosophy she calls “The Infinite.”  Haft-Candell further expands these ideas through creating a new framework for teaching ceramics called The Infinite School, a ceramics education program she runs out of her studio in Los Angeles. Haft-Candell received her BA in Studio Art and International Relations from University of California Davis, followed by an MFA from California State University Long Beach. She has presented solo exhibitions at Pitzer College, Claremont, CA; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Candice Madey Gallery, New York, NY; and Parrasch Heijnen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, among other galleries. The artist has participated in group exhibitions at Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA; Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY; Scripps College, Claremont, CA; LA Louver, Los Angeles, CA, and other galleries and institutions. She has received grants and residencies from Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME; Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, New York, NY; Yaddo Corporation Saratoga Springs, NY; and California Community Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, along with other national and international organizations.