# Ongoingness

URL: https://vielmetter.com/exhibitions/ongoingness/
July 25 — September 5, 2026 · Gallery III · Artists: Edgar Arceneaux, Andrea Bowers, Alec Egan, Nicole Eisenman, Liz Glynn, Karl Haendel, Samuel Levi Jones, Mario Joyce, Mary Kelly, Nate Lewis, Hugo McCloud, Rodney McMillian, Dave Muller, Wangechi Mutu, The Estate of Pope.L, Robert Pruitt, Deborah Roberts, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Ariane Vielmetter

**Installation photo credit: Jeff McLane**

**Edgar Arceneaux, Andrea Bowers, Alec Egan, Nicole Eisenman, Liz Glynn, Karl Haendel, Samuel Levi Jones, Mario Joyce, Mary Kelly, Nate Lewis, Hugo McCloud, Rodney McMillian, Dave Muller, Wangechi Mutu, Pope.L, Robert Pruitt, Deborah Roberts, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Ariane Vielmetter**

July 25 — September 5, 2026
 **Opening Reception: Saturday, July 25, 4 – 6 pm**

Vielmetter Los Angeles is pleased to present *Ongoingness*, a group exhibition featuring artists from the gallery’s program and anchored by a pivotal work by Pope.L that was created for his first solo exhibition with the gallery in 2015.

Entitled *Heaven (Vielmetter Version)*, this work provides a framework for a range of reflections on the nation’s past, present, and future as we mark the 250 year anniversary of the United States. It charts a course forward in the midst of tremendous upheaval, both for the vision of the gallery and for our personal relationship toward a country that has undergone profound social, environmental, and political change since our family immigrated here 36 years ago.

*Heaven* is one of Pope.L’s most materially austere, yet visually elegant works. Consisting of 28 columns of stacked disposable plastic water cups that have yellowed and stained with age, it adopts the purist aesthetics of minimalism and alludes to the Duchampian idea of the art object as a container for meaning. Pope.L references these pillars of the avant garde while also invoking darker histories, such as the role of a drinking fountain as a tool for enforcing segregationist policies in the Jim Crow era.