Untitled (Ocean Bird Wash-up), 1974 at the Second Ward Foundation.

Installed and screened at Hudson Hall in Hudson, New York Allora & Calzadilla’s film The Great Silence, 2014 examines the relationships between of sound between all living things, but also between earth and they broader galaxy. Central to the film is a focus on the world’s largest single aperture radio telescope and the Amazona vittata parrots which both reside in or around the Rio Abajo forest. The film chronicles humankind’s quest for intelligent life through the perspective of the Amazona Vittata Parrots as they ponder their very own existence and possible extinction at the hands of humankind. Thus losing an intelligent life here on earth and disregarding that the parrots themselves having language and advanced intelligence.

Around noon on October 18, 2020 in the sundrenched Promenade Hill Park in Hudson, New York full of park goers and picnickers capturing masked moments together with a multicolored fall backdrop and a breeze in the air overlooking the Hudson River–two men greeted each other with a fist bump and a back pat at the base of the hill. They had both been expecting one another. They walked up the hill to together carrying a brown non-descript cardboard box and sat on the ledge of the brick base of the flap pole where the American Flag flew at half-mast. The sound of the flag flapping and jolting in the wind clicked and clacked as though it were hundreds of footsteps on a hardwood floor and underscored their conversation, and punctuated it with the occasional ding of the carriage bolt clanging against the aluminum pole. After a few minutes of visiting together, they stood up and began to circle and examine the flag and flagpole, then inserted the key crank into the pulley system and lowered the American flag. On any other day this moment wouldn’t have meant much to anyone, other than for possible maintenance of the pulley mechanism or the exchange of the flag for a new updated and untattered flag, however this moment was neither instance. Most of the surrounding park goers also thought nothing of this moment and continued about their day taking photos of the picturesque fall landscape that has been depicted in so many art historical paintings and striving to capture their own sublime or postable moment, or at the very least an image to say they were there in person and are seeing the same views as generations before them.

After about 15-20 minutes of cranking, maneuvering, clipping and unfolding, still few pedestrians and park goers noticed, other than the occasional “has the flag fallen?” or “need a hand?” and two flags were raised in unison back to half-mast. One the American Flag and the other David Hammons’ Artist Proof of his iconic African American Flag both tethered together on the same hooks and cable. This particular moment, though seemingly random, possibly unsanctioned and clandestine was anything but that. Artist David Hammons had orchestrated a street action in Hudson, New York with the assistance Mayor Kamal Johnson and Curator Aaron Levi Garvey, as an examination and interpretation of the socio-political climate and tension within the United States during much of 2020. As Hammons’ street actions often do, this moment was unannounced to the general public or the art world, and was intended to be a moment where passersby happen upon the work and think more deeply, see more clearly and listen more closely to the world around them.

Hammons’ African American Flag, 1990 is an interpretation and collage of Marcus Garvey’s Red, Black and Green Pan-African Flag in the 1920’s and the American Flag, in which he used the colors of the Pan-African Flag to replace the colors of the American Flag. Throughout much of the first half of the 20th Century the Pan-African Flag was a symbol for the Back to Africa movement. Hammons created a new symbol, which has been embraced as an icon of African American identity to stake claim in these Unites States equally. Though Hammons’ flag is an edition of 5 with the others residing in museums and private collections, the recognizable black stars, red and black stripes and green canton has been widely replicated as a badge of pride. From stickers and pocket sized flags, to posters and sneakers the Hammons flag has become as recognizable as the flag in which is was drawn from.

The African American Flag has been installed and featured in museums around the world as a prominent fixture within exhibitions and biennials, this was the first time that his iconic work was displayed with and countered by the American Flag. Many viewers stopped to ask what the purpose of this display was, why was it happening, who the men were and how long it had been going on, but lost a bit of interest after receiving anecdotal responses from the two as they filmed the flags dancing in the wind. When asked “Why are their two flags?” or “Is that an American Flag in different colors?” Hammons would respond like a Zen master with a counter question in order to provoke further thought, enlightenment and introspection into their own perspectives and understanding of these two icons wrestling and dancing in the wind.

A handful of people did take note of the metaphoric power battle between two highly recognizable and charged icons in American culture flowing above them and realized that something rare was happening before them, though they couldn’t put a finger on what that was exactly–but they knew something extraordinary was taking place and took time out of their day to gather and watch. While Hammons’ flag was on display for a bit over a month during The Hudson Eye annual festival which created a safe public art program in a post-COVID reopening of the city, this moment was different as it was intentionally installed to overlap with the American Flag and allowed the two to fly parallel to one another and capture their momentary dance. Reflecting on the poetics of movement, the metaphors of and within American society, the sociopolitical tension between Americans of varying races, ethnicities and socioeconomic statuses, viewers were able to decipher the meaning of this work and the power dynamics at play in the United States.

In 1840, French photographer Hippolyte Bayard (1801-1887) created the first staged photograph in a piece titled “Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man” that depicted himself as a suicide victim. Bayard staged his photographic death to illustrate his distress over a lack of recognition, and consequently cast a shadow of doubt over the ‘truth’ in photography forever thereafter. The image itself serves as a reminder of photography’s simultaneous ability to mimic and distort reality.

The Drowned is guest curated by Aaron Levi Garvey as a part of Alabama Contemporary Art Center’s new guest curator program. Taking a cue from Bayard’s faked photograph, The Drowned is a collection of photographs, paintings, and films that highlight and play with altered realities. According to Garvey, the artists “engage with the production of bending imagery as they question the potential of creation enabled by image producing machines.” Through themes ranging from post-colonialism, celebrity culture to landscapes, The Drowned explores visual deception and nostalgia.

The exhibition includes the works of nine different artists, and will be on show for three months at the Alabama Contemporary Art Center.

ARTISTS INCLUDED:
Joseph Desler Costa | Bobby Davidson | Mark Dorf | Rachel Libeskind | Sophie Lvoff | Jillian Mayer | Lydia McCarthy | Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay | Daniel Newman

1:1 explores the multifaceted concept of language and its cultural weight as it relates to direct communication between individuals and individuals to the masses. Incorporating the work of artists Daniel Beckwith, David Bordett, Tommy Coleman, Katie Hargrave, Dustin Harewood, Jillian Mayer, Daniel Newman and Tony Rodrigues, this exhibition explores the complexities of rapidly changing narratives as they are dispersed into æther and received in/out of context. As opinions and dialogs become increasingly more divided, people with opposing points of view are physically speaking to each other less and less, causing for the loss of context, intention and cadence. 1:1 uses language and media as a jumping off point in examining the current state of correspondence, communication and the navigation through up-to-the-minute delivery systems.

Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories. —Elie Wiesel (1928–2016)

It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves. —T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)

Opening a season of programming that celebrates New Orleans’s tricentennial, the Contemporary Art Center’s annual open call exhibition presents the work of over 30 regional artists.

As a port city, New Orleans has long served as a departure, respite, or destination point for artists, intellectuals, merchants, and romantics. As we celebrate the three hundred year history as a city of journeymen, we recognize our own history in global patterns of geographic mobility. From refugees fleeing conflict, or facing oppression and natural disasters, to immigrants seeking opportunities and freedoms in new regions, the nomad presents as contemporary archetype.

And with him, across national borders and difficult passageways, (s)he brings mementos. Despite, or perhaps because of, their fragility, these objects accrue heightened significance as carriers of cultural and personal history.  They serve as signifiers of ethnic, religious, and regional association, transmitting memories of particular landscapes and traditions.

This exhibition presents the work of artists who examine the relationships of objects— which hold importance beyond their physical form—to experiences of places and cultural identities. Artists were asked to submit works that evoke their own sense of emotionality, sacredness, and personal connection to their cultures and beliefs through objects found and made. When faced with conflict or duress, what sacred objects or physical memories would be the first in hand and tucked away for safekeeping? What forms serve to tell your cultural story to the next generation? What is the history communicated by your chosen medium? Are objects singular and distinctly self-reflective, or do they portray individual history as copy, reproduction, or commodity in a global economy of exchange? How do histories of colonization and cultural domination figure in the objects with which we most closely identify?

Artists:  Artemis Antippas, Kevin Baer, Claire Beauchamp, Babette Beaullieu, Manon Bellet, Chris Berntsen & Ruth Ex, David Bordett, Hannah Chalew, Jose Cotto, Tony Dagradi, Paige DeVries, Nurhan Gokturk, Nathan Halverson, Leah Hamel, Ana Hernandez, Letitia Huckaby, Susan Ireland, Sharon Jacques, Juliana Kasumu, Christopher Alan Lawson, Sara Madandar, MILAGROS Collective, Momma Tried, Julie Morel, Carlos Rolón/Dzine, Loren Schwerd, Jesse Shamon, Maxx Sizeler, Carlton Scott Sturgill, Michelle Swafford, Carlie Trosclair and Lorna Williams.

All photos provided by Alex Marks.

This exhibition is organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, and curated by Aaron Levi Garvey.Support for this exhibition is provided by the Sydney & Walda Besthoff Foundation, The Helis Foundation, the Greater New Orleans Foundation, and the Welch Family Fund in memory of Walter Wade Welch.

Marina Abramovic – Freeing

During the Summer of 2019 a selection of Marina Abramovic’s most iconic films from her “Freeing…” series were presented as Public Art in storefront windows in Hudson, New York as part of The Hudson Eye city wide arts festival.

Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful, 1975
'Freeing the Body', 1976
'Freeing the Voice' 1976
'Freeing the Memory', 1976

Jonah Bokaer presents a 40-minute solo performance inspired by rare dramatic texts composed by Albert Camus for The Workers' Theater company. The 100th anniversary of Camus’ birth is currently being celebrated worldwide.

Bokaer will employ the author's ideas of existentialism, absurdism, lyrical resistance and displacement to create new meaning and inquiry into the nature of placing dance in museums.

Full Performance

The infamously reclusive artist created the work Diary as a look into his surroundings and daily live during much of 2020. Koh worked daily to capture the balance of his attendance in social justice marches, meditations, deep dives into films and his time in the studio. This literal diary demonstrates the immense ups and downs had by the artist in 2020, while also allowing viewers to find their own relatable stories from the shared year past.

SPRING/BREAK Art Show - Armory Week 2016

All digital concepts aside, the “Copy and Paste” element can be directly correlated to everyday life of human beings. Mankind wakes up every morning to inevitably go back to sleep the following evening. Daily life as it were, is a replicate of the prior day, dating back to each individual’s day of birth. The birthday in fact, is the true annual replicate. Each year that passes the same singular day/moment is celebrated, only slightly di_erent each time. Changes, which are so minute, that they can only be seen over the course of multiple iterations side by side from the years past, while everything else, is replicated and stays the same. The archetypes of celebration, cakes, balloons, checkered table clothes, noise-makers, confetti and candles; all copied from the years prior and pasted into the present, only slightly varied. The exhibition

Same-Same, But Different by Alanna Vanacore, seeks to contextualize the emotionality behind the personal changes one has during their birthday whilst being surrounded by replicas of the prior years. These broad array changes vary in magnitude, physicality and emotion, some as slight as the appearance of crows feet around the eyes or the memory of a loved one who passed the year prior. All of which have changed the person over the last year, but is unseen to outsiders. Seemingly these unseen changes keep the morale of celebration on a high note and a carbon copy of every other year.

In Summer 2014, the SCAD Museum of Art sponsored "Georgia Dispatch,” the seventh and final project of Alec Soth’s ongoing "Dispatch" series (2011–2014) during a two-week, 2,400-mile excursion through rural and urban Georgia. The "Dispatch" series began in 2011 when Soth and writer Brad Zellar journeyed across Ohio masquerading as small-town newspaper beat reporters, covering day-to-day happenings along their trek. The exhibition will feature a selection of Soth’s documentary photography from a variety of stops on their journey. From Bradley Lock and Key Shop in coastal Savannah, Georgia, to BabyLand General Hospital, the Cabbage Patch Kids adoption center in Cleveland, Georgia, these photographs create an engaging time-lapse portrait of Georgia’s past and present.

ATLBNL (Atlanta Biennial)
August 27, 2016 – December 18, 2016

Atlanta Contemporary is pleased to announce the return of the Atlanta Biennial – an exhibition that will showcase emerging, established, and forgotten artistic practices from around the region of which Atlanta, the “capital of the New South,” professes to be a cultural node. 

In 1984, the Whitney Museum’s biennial survey of influential American contemporary art contained work from zero Southern artists. This lead Alan Sondheim, then curator at Atlanta’s Nexus Contemporary, to take matters into his own hands, by creating the first ever Atlanta Biennial as platform for contemporary art emerging from and impacting culture in the southeastern United States. From that first exhibition until its last iteration in 2007, the Biennial exhibited hundreds of artists from throughout the region. Over the course of this 23-year run the exhibition sometimes focused solely on Atlanta-based artists, sometimes on artists from the state of Georgia, and, in several iterations, on an area of artistic production that included the whole of the American South. In 2016, we are waking the Atlanta Biennial from its nine-year slumber. 

To continue to add to the dialogues created in Atlanta Biennials past, the 2016 edition will focus on bringing entirely new voices to table: the extraordinary artists exhibiting represent 10 states from across the Southeast – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee – and have never shown in an Atlanta Biennial before. 

“After a nine-year slumber,” says Daniel Fuller, curator at Atlanta Contemporary, “it is a pleasure to bring the Atlanta Biennial back to light. On moving to Atlanta, this exhibition allows us to go back to our institution’s roots, while thinking about art from the South in a fresh way. This Biennial is an invitation to engage voices of the south; it is a platform to gather upon.”

The 2016 Atlanta Biennial is organized by the curatorial team of: Victoria Camblin, Editor + Artistic Director, ART PAPERS (Atlanta); Daniel Fuller, Curator, Atlanta Contemporary; Aaron Levi Garvey, Independent Curator and Co-Founder of Long Road Projects (Jacksonville); and Gia Hamilton, Director, Joan Mitchell Center (New Orleans). 

Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (Atlanta Contemporary) announces the 33 artists participating in the return of the Atlanta Biennial. With a roster of artists at varying points in their careers and with varying artistic practices– ATLBNL brings entirely new voices to the galleries by presenting not only the visual arts, but also book arts, film + video, fiber arts, literature, performance and music + sound. 

Previous Biennials – regardless of locale, curator, artists, or even the name itself – trumpeted the idea that many exceptional and relevant contemporary artists call the South home. The 2016 Atlanta Biennial further upholds this truth. “This Biennial brings together four curators with distinct points of view and curatorial methodologies,” noted Veronica Kessenich, Executive Director at Atlanta Contemporary. “They found common ground in their combined interest to exhibit individuals and collectives who have never before participated in the Atlanta Biennial. While the participants represent 8 states from across the Southeast, they do not relegate themselves to any specific sense of geography or space rather, together, their work examines the current state of contemporary art and contemporary issues.”

ATLBNL endeavors to champion these artists and their work while simultaneously re-contextualizing Atlanta Contemporary’s commitment to our mission to engage the public in the creation, presentation, and advancement of contemporary art – on the local, national, and international level. The Atlanta Biennial presents an opportunity to deeply engage with our established arts community as well as the day-to-day visitor. It is our unified hope that by respecting what has come before, we can remain responsive to what’s next as we discover, recognize, and reaffirm the role the South plays in the field of contemporary art.

The full list of artists is as follows:

Aint–Bad
Established 2011
Savannah, GA

Katrina Andry
Born New Orleans, LA
Lives New Orleans, LA

Jason Benson
Born Baltimore, MD
Lives Atlanta, GA

Guy Church
Born Madison, WI
Lives Memphis, TN

Tommy Coleman
Born in Long Island, New York
Lives in Jupiter, FL

Stephen Collier
Born Biloxi, MS
Lives New Orleans, LA

continent.
Established Atlanta, GA

Dust-to-Digital
Established Atlanta, GA

Skylar Fein
Born New York, NY
Lives New Orleans, LA

Ke Francis
Born Memphis, TN
Lives Tupelo, MS

Coulter Fussell
Born Columbus, GA
Lives Water Valley, MS

Adler Guerrier
Born Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Lives Miami, FL

Virginia Griswold
Born Petersburg, VA
Lives Nashville, TN

Darius Hill
Born Birmingham, AL
Lives Birmingham, AL

Ridley Howard
Born Atlanta, GA
Lives Athens, GA

Horton Humble
Born New Orleans, LA
Lives New Orleans, LA

Harmony Korine
Born Nashville, TN
Lives Nashville, TN

Phillip Andrew Lewis
Born Memphis, TN
Lives Chattanooga, TN

Kalup Linzy
Born Clermont, FL
Lives Tampa, FL

Abigail Lucien
Born Cap-Haitien, Haiti
Lives Knoxville, TN

Jillian Mayer
Born Miami, FL
Lives Miami, FL

Erin Jane Nelson
Born Atlanta, GA
Lives Atlanta, GA

Daniel Newman
Born Jacksonville, FL
Lives Jacksonville, FL

Sharon Norwood
Born Kingston, Jamaica
Lives St. Petersburg, FL

Gina Phillips
Born Richmond, KY
Lives New Orleans, LA

Mary Proctor
Born Monticello, FL
Lives Gainesville, FL

Zack Rafuls
Born Miami, FL
Lives Nashville, TN

Andrew Scott Ross
Born Manhasset, NY
Lives Johnson City, TN

Southern Food Ways Alliance
Founded Oxford, MS

Stacy Lynn Waddell
Born Washington, DC
Lives Chapel Hill, NC

Christina West
Born Perry, MI
Lives Atlanta, GA

Cosmo Whyte
Born St. Andrew, Jamaica
Lives Atlanta, GA

Built, World
June 7 - September 11, 2016

The SCAD Museum of Art presents “Built, World,” a group exhibition featuring works by leading international artists investigating architecture and constructed realities with a variety of media across a range of scale. Through photography, printmaking, sculpture and installation from the miniature to the monumental, this exhibition engages the social landscape, explores the real and mimetic and deconstructs architectural forms, histories and legacies.

Furthermore, “Built, World” explores the relationship between contemporary visual art practices and architecture as form and discipline, and also considers the power and ideology embedded within our built environment. Special attention is given to the underlying issues of the social and political mores of our time. Environmentalism, industrialization, social activism and historical recounts are touchstones traced throughout the works on view.

The exhibition includes works by:

Bernd and Hilla Becher, Germany
Ramón Miranda Beltrán, Puerto Rico
James Casebere, United States
Louise Bourgeois, France/United States
Bobby Davidson, United States
Wim Delvoye, Belgium
Olafur Eliasson, Denmark/Iceland
Ângela Ferreira, Mozambique/Portugal
Carlos Garaicoa, Cuba
Susan Hefuna, Germany/Egypt
Kiluanji Kia Henda, Angola
Takahiro Iwasaki, Japan
David LaChapelle, United States
Los Carpinteros, Cuba
Adam McEwen, England
Roxy Paine, United States
Talwst Santiago, Canada/Trinidad
Yutaka Sone, United States
Hrair Sarkissian, Syria
Zarina, India

“Built, World” is co-curated by SCAD guest curator Aaron Levi Garvey and SCAD head curator of exhibitions Storm Janse van Rensburg, with assistance from SCAD assistant curator of exhibitions Amanda York.

Chiharu Shiota’s "Infinity Lines," an expansive site-specific commissioned installation. This immersive artwork is the newest iteration of Shiota’s exploration of the interconnectivity between one’s possessions and the stories they hold. Labyrinthine networks of yarn intertwine objects and embody their imbedded narratives, leading viewers along a line of questioning — who has owned these objects, and why do they own them no longer?

For this exhibition, Shiota has incorporated antique wooden chairs that show evidence of their previous use. Red yarn connects one chair to another and also to the surfaces of the gallery itself, filling the space and tying individual stories and memories together, like neurons mapping memories in the brain. Just as memories and life experiences stay with each individual throughout their lives, the objects in the exhibition retain the personal histories of their owners and symbolically link present and past.

Shiota describes her installations as "drawings in space." The seemingly endless webs of red or black yarn have ensconced shoes, keys, beds occupied by sleepers, charred pianos and more. For the artist, red yarn connotes the body and human interaction. Performance is a longstanding part of Shiota’s practice, and even when she or other performers aren’t present in her installations, corporeal physicality remains an integral component of her work. Viewers navigate the space through pathways she determines, encountering found objects along the way. Shiota’s incorporation of these abandoned objects illustrates her belief that people removed from their home countries, such as herself, "live with their bodies as their only real possession."

In conjunction with the 38th Annual Alabama Clay Conference–held in Auburn for the first–the Jule Collins Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University is mounting a selection of traditional potter and stoneware from the permanent collection at the museum and key lenders from around the country. This exhibition is meant to explore the significant role in which pottery, ceramics and stoneware practice have been integral to southeastern culture. The works on view date back to the late-19th and early 20th centuries and focus primarily on the utilitarian nature of regional pottery. Key highlights in the exhibition include ‘Face Jugs’ from the Ham Family of Perry, Alabama and a David Drake pot from Edgefield, South Carolina which dates to the early-mid 19th century, but also more esoteric works of clay from RaMell Ross in which he uses the raw Alabama clay from Hale County to explore the complex histories and understandings of Alabama. While mostly minimalist in presentation and execution, the works speak volumes to the deep skill level that these artisans needed to create pieces with such precision time and time again and exemplifies their mastery of their medium.

Selected Works
February 16 - June 12, 2016

The SCAD Museum of Art presents an exhibition of selected works by acclaimed German painter Corinne Wasmuht, marking her first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. Wasmuht is best known for her large-scale oil paintings, which seek to define her own place within a contemporary global landscape wrought with a constant influx of information and imagery.

In the works on view, Wasmuht uses the visual language of painting to comment on the world population’s increasing dependency on electronic devices, and the diminishing interpersonal social engagement and reactionary contemplation therein. As images of experiences and landscapes from around the world can be seen instantly on backlit screens and handheld devices, Wasmuht pulls from her own photography, various Internet-based sources and a meticulous collection of images from life, landscapes and nature as inspiration for her immersive paintings.

In oil paint, Wasmuht creates a reimagined world that blends both recognizable and abstracted forms into new multilayered landscapes. These spatially enveloping scenes are reminiscent of digital glitches that as such provide viewers with a sense of walking through a virtual reality painted with movement and real-time pixilation. Each work juxtaposes the seemingly erratic and disjointed with a command of illusion that collectively creates an experiential and cathartic release of tension.

The Unlocking Key – the exhibition’s namesake – is inspired by Santiago’s familial connections and the internal dialog with what it means to make perfect pieces.

When Santiago was 8 years old he met his extended family for the first time in Trinidad and attended the annual J'ouvert celebration with his cousins. The daybreak J'ouvert celebration is associated with the emancipation from slavery in 1838; this was the point in which formerly enslaved individuals had the opportunity to freely celebrate carnival. Santiago noticed carnival members had covered their faces in red clay – a carryover tradition in remembrance of ancestral participants of J'ouvert. As celebrations peaked and participant’s faces began to glow in the sun, Santiago was struck and stood stunned in the crowd. This singular moment stuck with him for the rest of his life and has since heavily influenced his painting and drawing practice, his recognizable and noteworthy “Red Face” portraits act as letters and conversations with the spirits if his ancestors.

As Santiago dove further in depth channeling his lineage, he began to notice a painting following him and coming up over and over in his research. Chafariz d’El-Rey (The King’s Fountain) a 16th century painting by an unknown Flemish artist depicts an African Knight from the Order of Santiago riding through central Lisbon. Its repeated appearances triggered further research and initiated Santiago’s move to Portugal in late-2017 to create a new body of work revolving around the Black Knight imagery, further research into the medieval lineal ties of the name Santiago. While working and settling in Lisbon the painting made another appearance in his life after a chance encounter with acquaintances, Santiago was able to view the painting in person and become friends with its owners. This moment solidified he and his works connection to the piece’s history and catapulted his studio practice and codified latest bodies of works from the last year.

The Future Was Then
February 16 - July 31, 2016

"The Future Was Then," a monumental installation by Daniel Arsham created specifically for the Pamela Elaine Poetter Gallery at the SCAD Museum of Art. These select sculptural works and this installation explore the interaction between mankind and architecture, and draw particular attention to man’s capacity for creating, destroying and repurposing manmade and natural materials both historically and contemporaneously.

Central to the exhibition is Arsham’s “Wall Excavation” installation, a large-scale, architecturally responsive installation in which the artist has carved into a repeated series of faux-concrete walls. As visitors engage directly with their surroundings and walk among the immersive excavation, they are met with sculpted openings in which jagged edges morph from abstract forms into the silhouette of a human figure. This transformative experience evokes notions of progress in relation to mankind’s ability to manipulate his surroundings.

Arsham’s interests in the analysis of mankind’s place in history set the tone for the exhibition. "The Future Was Then" simultaneously comments on and condenses the timeline of civilization and creates an experiential moment for visitors to reflect on their own personal place within it.

The Triptych
February 7 - June 8, 2014

"The Triptych," making its museum premiere, is Yellin’s largest and most complex work, a massive 12-ton, three-paneled epic, embodying his vision of the world and consciousness.

For Yellin, "the universe and the mind are shadowy places seething with dark magic, seas of boundless depth and possibility, overflowing with joy and disaster." In this composition of clippings, acrylic and glass, Yellin presents a surreal spectacle.

Elizabeth M. Webb is an artist and filmmaker originally from Charlottesville, Virginia. A bearing tree is a witness; an oak is an echo examines her relationship with former plantation land–remarkably located near The Jule–once settled by and subsequently inherited by her ancestors on either side of the “color line,” both Black and White. She researched field notes and plat maps from the Lee County Archives to chronicle the complex and layered relationships between social and natural histories in the area.

Those field notes, which “use trees to visualize an imaginary grid and create property boundaries,” appear in fragile porcelain alongside familial oral histories and historic documents. These sculptures, paired in conversation with Audubon etchings, convey the same plant life, claimed and categorized in similar times, as scientific reflections of property.

Contemporary prints result from the convergence of soil drawn from the former plantation land of her ancestors and U.S. Department of Agriculture maps; and a 16mm film of that land is buried along the historic property boundary by the artist. Covering the celluloid with soil produces chemical reactions as if tinting evidence of the property’s past. Taken together, the works in the show invite us to think connectivity across time.

Finger Circus is a contemporary dance troop based in the San Francisco Bay area, whose performances primarily focus on "finger tutting." "Tutting," originally performed by funk dancers in the mid- to late- 1960s, pulls stylistic influence from the figural representations found in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

"Tutting" performers change the angles of their arms and bodies in response to the rhythm and beat of their performance soundtracks. "Finger Tutting," as the name suggests, focuses primarily on the hands and fingers. Related to the physical gesturing in "voguing" and historically relevant artist performances such as Yvonne Rainer’s "Hand Movie" (1966) and Richard Serra’s "Hand Catching Lead? (1968), Finger Circus contributes to an impressive lineage of hand-based performance art and pop culture.

Finger Circus has performed in multiple venues and pop-culture videos including McDonald’s commercials, Taylor Swift’s "Shake It Off" music video and the "A-Z of Dance, " presented by Diesel and i-D magazine. Members of Finger Circus include Christopher Chase Lindsey (CTut), Bela Joseph Sao (Strobe), Jordan Kaysean Demings (Era), Reymar Anonuevo Silverio(Nemesis) and John Ray Hunt (P-nut).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE2E4uRm6s0

Reminiscent of Time Passed
May 12 - August 21, 2016

“Reminiscent of Time Passed” a solo exhibition by Gamaliel Rodríguez, featuring recent works on paper, as well as “Figure 1737,” a 45-foot ballpoint pen drawing commissioned by the SCAD Museum of Art. “Figure 1737” depicts Fort Benning, Georgia, and its surrounding areas, created from memory. Rodríguez was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the late ’90s during his service as an infantryman with the U.S. Army. As a service member, he honed his skills in navigation, investigation and map reading — knowledge that he later translated into his visual art practice.

Rodríguez’s nondescript industrial landscapes of Puerto Rico and U.S. territories are gleaned from his own personal experiences, travel and imagination. These haunting monochromatic images in ballpoint, acrylic inks and Sharpie markers are at first specific and familiar to visitors, while also unexpected and extraordinary in their scale and design. 

[During an] election year of 2020 and pre-COVID-19 pandemic, Jonah Bokaer Choreography and architect Charles Renfro (partner of Diller, Scofidio + Renfro – DS+R) set out to create a collaborative work with sociologist Charlie Kurtzman and violinists Jennifer and Angela Chun. The result of this collaboration realized the work Indecent Spaces, a multi-channel performance and media work which explores the connections between spatial histories, citizenry, and identity in the American landscape of the 21st century as a result of complex histories.

The polyvalent histories of the United States, too often described in strictly black and white terms, are much more nuanced and often need contextualization, back stories and in-depth examination to be fully understood. The nation was founded on the principle that "all men are created equal,” but this aspirational utopia was promulgated by exploited free labor for personal and financial gain. Although the United States began and continues to be a nation of immigrants, it has increasingly excluded so called outsiders as non-American. The premise of considering ‘American’ identity as an exclusive, singular genetic race is a paradox in itself: surely the closest origin to an American race would be Indigenous Americans, the very same ethnic group forced into land prisons, and denied resources by outside conquerors.

While the United States was founded on noble concepts, built around economic and ethical aspiration, the nation’s complex history is often eschewed for a simpler and pastoral story, which often highlights stories of prosperity and growth in the face of adversity. The privilege of history is often written by the victor and equality is often administered by those with economic advantage. Omission becomes written onto, into, and about the bodies of United States citizens: often erasing their histories. These conditions omit the messy middle in favor of easy, binary edges: Black/White, Male/Female, True/False, Gay/Straight, Republican/Democrat, to name a few and leave out the perceived inconvenient or complex gray areas. In more recent years, social media spaces have demanded that users pledge allegiance to one side or the other, oversimplifying matters, reducing public engagement to choose “like” or “unlike,” and undermining the rich history of the nation’s founding.

Indecent Spaces explores the more difficult and often hidden histories of the United States, American citizens and their bodies by exploring several locales around the nation such as University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Caroline, the Transcontinental Railroad station in Livermore, California, the 6th Precinct in New York City, New York, and the Tucson Benedictine Monastery in Tucson, Arizona to name a few. The interactive exhibition and performance shows that American spaces and American bodies mirror and resist one another and complicate the nation’s ambitions without settling into a singular classification. Set within an open museum gallery, Indecent Spaces explores themes of singularity, binarity and everything in-between, through literal and virtual manipulations of space by way of choreographic responses. Comprised of four architecturally scaled mobile projections, each screen divides and unites the performers and exhibition elements with audiences and blurs the lines between walled spaces and three-dimensional video art. The rolling video imagery examines select sites around the United States that each contain entangled and complex histories within the country’s psychogeography, particularly around issues of race, labor, identity, citizenship, and human rights. As the exhibition and performance continue to iterate over the course of eight months, four dancers will periodically engage with the gallery space and public setting to manipulate the exhibition, while interacting with attending mobile audience members, as they face architectural confrontations, projected imagery, artificial divisions, and forced perspective while they navigate a shifting of overlaid spaces, and their own relationships to personal space and public sites.

As poetic as the piece, it seems only fitting that a multisensory work of art which examines the hidden and non-linear histories of contested sites within the United States has gone unseen due to global pandemic shutdowns of cultural spaces. Indecent Spaces is making its world premiere here at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University.

“...the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you possess, the gods remember what they gave you. They don't forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care. ... All flesh, with only minor differences, is a powerless and puny thing doomed soon to disintegrate and disappear. That is an unmistakable truth. But what, then, of a person’s spirit? ... Setting aside the question of whether it has any practical value to do so, thinking about one’s own spirit is one of the most indispensable of all human tasks, is it not?”

- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84, 2009

Humankind’s pursuit to transcend mortality and the physical world in order to bend their existence between time and space is an ages old journey. For as long as there has been free thinking humans, there has been a certain longing in each of us to understand the intricacies of the universe, our own places within the cosmos, the hereafter and the mysticism held within generations of these explorations. Throughout the centuries artistic and self-expression have been ever present in these pursuits. Those fortunate enough to get a glimpse of the “other side” have worked to create visual, auditory or literary representations of their journeys and experiences. Not only have these artisans, musicians, authors and performers worked under the guise of the aforementioned pursuits, but also under the effects of Stendhal’s Syndrome as they become physically taken over by otherworldly elements during their work and have the universe speak to their spirit and soul. Often these explorations are solo journeys for one to find their own place, unsanctioned and unhindered as they experience their personal ecstatic emotions, visions and manifestations.

From the writings of the Kabbalah and the use of Haint Blue throughout the southern United States, to Edmund Burke and his explorations of the Sublime in painting and the Transcendental Painters Group search for a higher plane of mental space and the departure of representation within painting, mysticism and spirituality has been ever present across cultures and art practices. Though the theories of the Sublime and Transcendental Painter schools were separated by nearly two centuries and their approaches to art making were vastly disparate, there was much common ground between the two areas of practice and study. The theory of Sublime Art focused on the creation of representational objects that would in effect cause an indescribable spiritual, physical/metaphysical reactions of makers and viewers, and the Transcendental Painters Group took on the task of creating works that would evoke similar notions of spirituality through complete abstraction and the use of color.

Invisible Thread explores the works of contemporary artists who approach spirituality, the transcendence of physical reality and the subconscious, through abstraction and metaphorical representation. To say, contemporary artists have continued in the linages of not only their ancestors, but also the artisans in generations before them as the transcribers of the mysteries within the universe while being bound together by the Invisible Thread in the shared channeling of their collective lineal histories. Building upon their meditative spaces in the creation of non-representational works and those that morph from full abstraction in the use of conceptual metaphors in representational works. Invisible Thread presents a broad swath of mediums and techniques including performance, film, sculpture and painting, while conceptually threading both abstract and representational elements together in the examination of contemporary spirituality and the continued pursuit of transcending mortality.

Featured Artists: Lala Abaddon, Natalie Ball, David Bordett, Awol Erizku, Jeffrey Gibson, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Rachel Libeskind, Tony Rodrigues, Shikeith, Panos Tsagaris, Neha Vedpathak, Monsieur Zohore

“...the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you possess, the gods remember what they gave you. They don't forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care. ... All flesh, with only minor differences, is a powerless and puny thing doomed soon to disintegrate and disappear. That is an unmistakable truth. But what, then, of a person’s spirit? ... Setting aside the question of whether it has any practical value to do so, thinking about one’s own spirit is one of the most indispensable of all human tasks, is it not?”

- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84, 2009

Humankind’s pursuit to transcend mortality and the physical world in order to bend their existence between time and space is an ages old journey. For as long as there has been free thinking humans, there has been a certain longing in each of us to understand the intricacies of the universe, our own places within the cosmos, the hereafter and the mysticism held within generations of these explorations. Throughout the centuries artistic and self-expression have been ever present in these pursuits. Those fortunate enough to get a glimpse of the “other side” have worked to create visual, auditory or literary representations of their journeys and experiences. Not only have these artisans, musicians, authors and performers worked under the guise of the aforementioned pursuits, but also under the effects of Stendhal’s Syndrome as they become physically taken over by otherworldly elements during their work and have the universe speak to their spirit and soul. Often these explorations are solo journeys for one to find their own place, unsanctioned and unhindered as they experience their personal ecstatic emotions, visions and manifestations.

From the writings of the Kabbalah and the use of Haint Blue throughout the southern United States, to Edmund Burke and his explorations of the Sublime in painting and the Transcendental Painters Group search for a higher plane of mental space and the departure of representation within painting, mysticism and spirituality has been ever present across cultures and art practices. Though the theories of the Sublime and Transcendental Painter schools were separated by nearly two centuries and their approaches to art making were vastly disparate, there was much common ground between the two areas of practice and study. The theory of Sublime Art focused on the creation of representational objects that would in effect cause an indescribable spiritual, physical/metaphysical reactions of makers and viewers, and the Transcendental Painters Group took on the task of creating works that would evoke similar notions of spirituality through complete abstraction and the use of color.

Invisible Thread explores the works of contemporary artists who approach spirituality, the transcendence of physical reality and the subconscious, through abstraction and metaphorical representation. To say, contemporary artists have continued in the linages of not only their ancestors, but also the artisans in generations before them as the transcribers of the mysteries within the universe while being bound together by the Invisible Thread in the shared channeling of their collective lineal histories. Building upon their meditative spaces in the creation of non-representational works and those that morph from full abstraction in the use of conceptual metaphors in representational works. Invisible Thread presents a broad swath of mediums and techniques including performance, film, sculpture and painting, while conceptually threading both abstract and representational elements together in the examination of contemporary spirituality and the continued pursuit of transcending mortality.

Featured Artists: Lala Abaddon, Natalie Ball, David Bordett, Awol Erizku, Jeffrey Gibson, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Rachel Libeskind, Tony Rodrigues, Shikeith, Panos Tsagaris, Neha Vedpathak, Monsieur Zohore

Long Road Projects presents the world premiere of “Did I Remember,” a new piece of choreography by international choreographer and media artist Jonah Bokaer. This new work will be the culmination of Bokaer’s multi-week residency with Long Road Projects in Jacksonville, Florida accompanied by artistic associate Szabi Pataki. This newly commissioned work will premiere and be performed by the city’s very own critically acclaimed professional modern dance company Jacksonville Dance Theatre. In addition to the newly created choreography, Bokaer will also be working with Master Printmaker Patrick Miko to publish an edition of printed visual works on paper that corresponds to the performance.

Over the course of three multi-week visits to Long Road Projects, Jonah Bokaer conducted a series of research meetings and collaborations in Jacksonville, Florida. During his residency, Bokaer will work with members of Jacksonville Dance Theatre on the creation of a new work entitled “Did I Remember,” inspired by the 1920’s jazz club, Lenape Tavern, housed within the former Genovar’s Hall. Located in the historic neighborhood and birthplace of American author, politician, and early civil rights advocate James Weldon Johnson, LaVilla—Jacksonville’s first suburb—was the epicenter of the Jazz Age in Northeast Florida and often hosted Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and later Ray Charles. Unfortunately with all of its history, the building and surrounding neighborhood succumbed to a period of decline and neglect. All that is left of the original structure are a few exterior brick walls held up by steel beams from failed preservation attempts. “Did I Remember” seeks to channel the histories and mythos of Genovar’s Hall and LaVilla through movement, choreographic design and the music of Billie Holiday.
While Jonah Bokaer Choreography is in its 15th Anniversary Season, planning its Anniversary Gala on October 27th in New York, and fulfilling its highly-anticipated debut at The Joyce Theater October 27-28, Jonah Bokaer and Szabi Pataki will worked and rehearsed locally in Jacksonville for the creation of this project.

“Did I Remember” kicks off Long Road Projects third season and is the first collaboration between Long Road Projects and Jacksonville Dance Theatre. This overarching project will serve not only the arts community of Jacksonville, but the student population at Florida State College at Jacksonville and the Jacksonville public at large. The partnership of the two organizations is meant to strengthen the contemporary art program in the Southeast U.S. while bolstering the profile of Northeast Florida.

Full Performance

Did I Remember
Concept, Set Design and Choreography:
Jonah Bokaer

Artistic Associate and Rehearsal Director:
Szabi Pataki

Curator:
Aaron Levi Garvey

Performances By:
Winter Bosanko
Amber Daniels
Breanna King
Rebecca R. Levy
Katie McCaughan
Joshua Mora
Tiffany S. Santeiro
Tess Sturgeon
Kristen Sullivan

Practical Structures
November 10, 2016 - January 22, 2017

Practical Structures," a solo exhibition by Jose Dávila featuring newly commissioned work. A renowned Mexico-based multidisciplinary artist, Dávila uses site-specific installation, photography and appropriation of iconic images to explore the intersection of modern architecture and art.

Originally trained as an architect, Dávila uses his expertise to explore material function, equilibrium, context and form throughout his artwork. His experimental structures are often calibrated specifically to the spaces in which they are installed. Their monumental components balance seemingly precariously from tethers made of ratchet straps, thus giving form to what he terms "the universal struggle of humanity against gravity."

The site-specific installation commissioned by the SCAD Museum of Art is composed of three large-scale, thinly sliced pieces of marble, balanced in a tilted configuration but held upright by industrial ratchet straps that stretch from the gallery’s walls. As such, the artist creates great dramatic visual and physical effects of height, weight and balance. Dávila draws from concepts rooted in minimalism and conceptual art, and encourages the viewer to question where the artist’s hand begins and ends. The raw, unpolished marble countered by the nylon straps demonstrates the dichotomy between naturally occurring materials and the manufactured.

Once the exhibition is complete, the three sculptures that make up the exhibition will be disassembled and the marble slabs returned to Savannah-based Garpa Company: House of Natural Stone, which lent the materials for the duration of the show. This simple act of return undermines the idea that art should exist in perpetuity and embraces the ephemeral.

Root systems often thrive in areas that support growth, sustainability and the deepening of a firm connection to a region or space. With that said we must not discount the route that was taken to put down those roots since the journey instructs one’s own adaptability to their surroundings. Like pollen and seed migration, humans often have had non-linear movements toward settling down in safe and livable spaces where they too can put down roots, create communities and thrive in new locations. Oftentimes the transit between locations and experiences encountered along the way work to build one’s personality, backgrounds, and the way their roots can be settled or if they remain unsettled and deeply rooted in their own migration to stay safely nomadic. Whether it be a cross country move, a trip to the grocery store or family vacation, these periods of transit can either build up or cleanse one’s character traits.

Kevin Brisco's work is primarily concerned with issues of place and representation, more specifically the dubious nature of home and belonging for African Americans in the United States and the southeast. In his Blue-Sky series of paintings, Brisco works to expound upon the blue sky as a metaphor as it relates to the lived experiences of African Americans under a shared sky and how the shared blue sky does not denote a communal experience for everyone. The paintings within the exhibition are what the artist considers landscape portraits, which depict the human figure coupled with semi-indigenous plant species in order to depict an allegory for colonization of spaces and the forced migration of bodies across the Atlantic. When considering the depth of these works one must look toward the passage of time and reflect upon how humans and nature have simultaneously experienced countless blue sky’s while carrying their own ever-changing histories and roots.

History and change are constantly moving forward with time, no two moments may be the same or experienced in the same manner–and like moments–no two objects are created the same. Their chemical compounds may be similar but the atoms and molecules within them are ever so slightly different, they age, degrade, and withstand time differently. Exhibited along with the Blue-Sky paintings are a small selection of John James Audubon works which illustrate the passage of time, displaying the slow changing and fading of an image or object despite having the best care and circumstance. This is meant to illustrate that nothing remains in a fixed position forever no matter if there are dark days or blue sky’s ahead, the passage of time allows for perspective, hindsight and foresight to steadily being gained and understood.

Brisco posits the question does the blue sky represent a sense of safety, well-being or bliss, despite the planet’s own indifference to personal internal being?

The Kinsey African American Art & History Collection celebrates the achievements and contributions of Black Americans from 1595 to present times. Considered one of the most comprehensive surveys of African American history and culture outside the Smithsonian Institution, the exhibition of the same name features the shared treasures amassed by Shirley and Bernard Kinsey during their five decades of marriage. The collection includes painting, sculpture, photography, rare books, letters and manuscripts that offer a well-rounded look at the African American experience and provide new perspectives on the nation’s history and culture.

Irons for the Ages, Flowers for the Day
July 30, 2015 - January 24, 2016

“Irons for the Ages, Flowers for the Day,” a large-scale installation by Beijing-based sculptor Li Hongbo. Hongbo primarily uses handmade paper to create visually compelling and malleable sculptures that challenge the viewer’s perceptions of metamorphosis in sculpture.

Paper and papermaking have throughout history been quintessential to Chinese culture. The oldest known paper fragments in the world date back to the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). Paper slowly made its way to the Western world by way of the Silk Road, a trading network that connected the East and West. Hongbo’s work can be seen as part of this continuum, drawing from a rich formal and historic tradition. The artist’s fascination with paper and its history started coincidentally when he attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, as paper was a cheap and readily available resource. This ultimately developed into a focused analysis and engagement with the endless possibilities the medium offers as Hongbo progressed through his studies and established his career.

Building upon his expansive knowledge of paper’s natural strengths and weaknesses, Hongbo applies a honeycomb layer of adhesive between sheets of paper, creating a solid yet malleable structure that can stretch, twist, elongate and retract. Consisting of thousands of paper objects that span the entirety of Pamela Elaine Poetter Gallery of the SCAD Museum of Art, “Irons for the Ages, Flowers for the Day” examines the conflicts and damages of war and weapons. Hongbo recreates crude tools of war from brightly colored, honeycombed, laminated paper and reshapes them into delicate abstract forms resembling floral patterns. By removing all signs of destruction and chaos, the artist transforms the sinister intent of the weapon into a venerable landscape of flowers, evoking feelings of sublime optimism.

Halcyon Fracture
June 27 - October 1, 2014

SCAD presents "Halcyon Fracture," an exhibition by Beijing-based artist Li Hui. The installation, marking the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the U.S., will feature a site-specific installation titled "Halcyon Fracture." Organized by SCAD assistant curator Aaron Levi Garvey, this work features numerous laser lights reflecting off a surface of fractured, polished steel.

Hui is acclaimed for creating works with striking optical effects that are simultaneously breathtaking and disorienting. They are conceptually influenced by Eastern religious thought and philosophy, with an emphasis on Zen Buddhism that encourages meditation and contemplation. "I believe in mental communication rather than verbal explanation," Hui said.  "To be honest, I don’t think art can ever be fully explained in words."

"Halcyon Fracture" invites viewers to enjoy a transformative experience where optical illusion and form comingle. Please enter this installation at your own discretion.

"Linear Abstraction," an exhibition featuring artists Rana Begum, Walead Beshty, Marco Breuer, Michelle Grabner, Terry Haggerty, John Houck, Matt Mignanelli, Phillip Stearns, Russell Tyler, Rafael Vega and Rebecca Ward.

The line is sometimes thought of as the shortest distance between two points. “Linear Abstraction” presents a stylistically diverse group of 11 contemporary artists who share a common approach to their work through the use of sharp edged, linear or geometric forms. The artists in the exhibition are linked by their creative exploration of surface, pattern and structure, as well as the expressive power of the line. This exhibition seeks to broaden the context in which line and abstraction is interpreted with a focus on the artist’s exploration of the linear. From the innovative "glitch" work of Phillip Stearns, where the lines seem haphazard and arbitrary, to the precise installations of Rana Begum and Terry Haggerty, "Linear Abstraction" offers varying perspectives and interpretations of the line.

The exhibition presents more than 30 works, including Rana Begum’s neon-colored aluminum assemblage sculpture; a large-scale commissioned wall installation by Terry Haggerty; silverpoint drawing and digital photography by Michelle Grabner; and geometric compositions in oil on canvas by Rebecca Ward and Russell Tyler. It also features manipulated chromogenic paper photographs by Marco Breuer; enamel on canvas works by Matt Mignanelli; a large-format color photogram by Walead Beshty; creased photographic paper prints by John Houck; and acrylic on panel paintings by Rafael Vega. Through a broad range of media, "Linear Abstraction" examines the legacy and history of abstraction into the 21st century. 

The exhibition is co-curated by Alexandra Sachs and Aaron Levi Garvey.

Over the course of the last year and a half, Paul Weiner has appropriated various icons of American culture as tools in examining the social mores in a country heavily divided by political, economic, race and religious ideologies. Throughout his career, he has often started new bodies of work as a result of an unsettling event. Weiner’s latest series focuses particularly on Americana, notions of entitlement and subversive separatist attitudes stemming from the 2016 Presidential election, have spurned a desire to search for further definitions of what it means to be an American. The exhibition Ol’ Glory, Ol’ Apologies delves into American ideas of self-awareness, global identity and altered histories behind the repeat offenses of American stereotypes.

The new suite of American flags, Gadsden Flags and government documents work to separate the stereotypical symbols of patriotism from their original intent and place them into moments of introspection for the viewers. This series entitled “Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989)” references the United States Supreme Court decision, which abolished any prohibitions on desecrating the American flag. Weiner works to engage with the American psyche through these works and traverse ingrained ideas of what their personal definitions are of patriotism. By crafting paintings out of American flags and iterations thereof, Weiner has tapped into a slue of social anxieties expressed by various groups of American peoples. Whether it be the anti-protestors railing against NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem, to military vets who support the rights of every citizen to speak their minds freely, this series distills down the most basic elements of the flags and works to free them of all preconceived notions of patriotism and American identity. This allows for visitors to form their own definitions and patriotism and American Nationalism.

Photos by Jeffrey Enriquez.

Exhibition statement forthcoming. 

Artists included: Bobby Davidson, Allen Frame, Chang Kim, Emma Wilcox and Jessica Yatrofsky. 

MEMO highlights the vulnerability of the natural environment and its impending destruction. As visitors move throughout the installation, their presence alters the collective works on view. Burning Air – a work comprised of burnt silk paper fragments – shifts and stirs while Golden Waste – an interactive work of perfumed paper made from the scents collected from endangered areas of the Louisiana wetlands – dulls over time. These pieces act as a metaphor for lost or soon to be lost environments. MEMO endeavors to visually illustrate how delicate and fleeting nature can be with mankind’s sustained impact.

In 2017, Manon Bellet began field research to extract scents from specific areas of the Mississippi Delta region affected by coastal erosion. She sampled natural flora and fauna, water and soil and sentimental objects of the people who lived there. Through her research and studio practice, Bellet creates a multisensory body of work that plays with what we see, hear, smell and feel.

Through the beauty of fragrance, this exhibition explores Bellet’s concern with landscapes lost through the effects of time, global warming, or urban sprawl. As smells often do, Bellet’s scent sculptures evoke unique memories. Still, these detached odors allow for a shared journey, creating new, collective remembrances Bellet associates with extinction, risk, or loss.

A Swallow Does Not Make a Summer is the second iteration in the Radical Naturalism series of exhibitions. Contemporary artists are invited as guest curators to work with Auburn University’s collections and present representations of the natural world. Alongside her pieces, Bellet selected prints by John James Audubon and Warrington Colescott to pair with specimens from Auburn’s Museum of Natural History.

"There Will Come Soft Rains," an exhibition by the acclaimed artist Matthew Day Jackson. Jackson’s work explores the dichotomy between the past and present and the narrative of his own identity within history. These investigations address the loss of the American dream through the juxtaposition of unrealized Audubon plates, from which Jackson has created new prints, along with images culled from Jackson's personal history.

"There Will Come Soft Rains" takes its name from the 1920 poem by American poet Sara Teasdale. The poem imagines nature’s reclamation of a post-conflict battlefield. In Teasdale's words, "… not one will know of the war, not one/ will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn/Would scarcely know that we were gone."

Jackson appropriates text from the poem as narrative to illustrate personal and family travel as well as landscape photographs. The result is a new film and suite of images that merge his own personal history with relics and markers of America’s natural history. Employing such diverse media as video, photography and printmaking, "There Will Come Soft Rains" encompasses Jackson’s layered practice as well as his personal interest in Americana.

For deFINE ART, this exhibition debuts two new works. The first is a film that features imagery from Jackson's grandparents' holidays throughout the U. S. in the 1940s through the 1970s. Imbued with memories and nostalgia, this film provided a fundamental basis for the artist’s appreciation of nature. The second new work features a portfolio of 12 etchings in which Jackson has resurrected forgotten John James Audubon plates, which were posthumously created in 1937 by the History Institute of America and sanctioned by the Audubon Society. Ultimately, the plates were never used due to the onset of World War II. Through meticulous research and legal efforts, Jackson obtained the plates and worked with a master printer to create the new print series. Through found imagery and texts, Jackson offers viewers a moment to reflect on images of Americana, poetry and nostalgia for the timeless power and beauty of nature.

“Bloom,” a solo exhibition by Natasha Bowdoin, featuring a site-specific sculptural installation along with recent two-dimensional works. Bowdoin draws inspiration from two key elements: literature and nature. Growing up in Maine, a state nicknamed the “Pine Tree State” because of the expansive white pine forests covering nearly 90 percent of the state’s landscape, Bowdoin often spent her days roaming the forests or on a boat in the Atlantic. These early memories of her adolescent interactions with nature fostered her appreciation and wonderment for the magnitude of the world’s landscape. Bowdoin’s practice offers viewers a chance to experience, interpret and align their own senses in an effort to better understand their placement within the natural world, calling to mind a quote from “Nature” by American author and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other ...”

Bowdoin builds upon her own experiences and illustrates literary passages to create pictorial, multi-colored and tiered interpretations based on a ritualistic and methodical studio practice. This meditative practice employs an assortment of mixed media, such as painting, paper cut from found and drawn elements, and writing. The summation of these parts creates an awe-inspiring landscape of flora and fauna. These meticulously layered and complex handcrafted installations take anywhere between three weeks to two years from conception to installation.

Over the last two years, Bowdoin has worked intensely to create “Garden Plot,” which debuts at the SCAD Museum of Art in her first Southeastern solo museum exhibition. The natural world and botanic illustrations play equally important roles in the conceptualizing of the work, most notably Ernst Haeckel’s prints of sea life and lunar maps. Drawing from these sources, along with Emerson’s “Nature” essay and Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” Bowdoin’s installation seeks to create a new rhythmic storyline. Using an assortment of mixed media — cut paper, graphite, gouache and wall painting — this installation transforms the aforementioned texts into visual patterned abstractions. These abstracted pieces show glimpses of language and text that analyze the ebb and flow of nature and our interaction within it.  

SCAD Museum of Art presents a solo exhibition of collage works and films by New York-based artist Rashaad Newsome. “Orders of Chivalry” showcases Newsome’s contemporary take on historic imagery. Through the borrowing and blending of elaborately realized heraldic symbols with iconic hip-hop visuals, Newsome discerns and critiques power structures that have endured for centuries.

Newsome’s treatise on social and economic divisions explores and recreates heraldic meaning through contemporary imagery and concepts. Heraldry’s origins as the practice of recording coats of arms on banners and shields have long been wrought with imagery of one’s status, displaying both familial lineage and military ranking. After living and working in Europe, Newsome began to make connections between heraldic elements in various forms of art and architecture. He also recognized correlations between the prominent status symbols found in hip-hop culture and those of heraldic motifs and symbols. Newsome’s cross-cultural appropriation of European and American status symbols critiques issues of race, politics and consumer culture.

Central to the exhibition is Newsome’s “Heraldry” film trilogy. Shown as a monumental cube installation, the films invite viewers to move through the gallery as they follow the progression of the image across three screens. This site-specific installation of “King of Arms” was commissioned by SCAD Museum of Art. Throughout these films, Newsome is the protagonist and master of ceremonies, guiding viewers through the rites and rituals involved with becoming the king of arms, the highest-ranking knight.

The SCAD exhibitions department presents "American Byway: Selections from US Highway 80," a solo exhibition by SCAD professor and photography chair Rebecca Nolan. This body of work focuses on elements of the bypassed areas of rural America from coast to coast. Highway 80 is an interstate that was made obsolete due to construction of the modern freeway. Subsequently, the townships and various populated areas along this route have been neglected. Nolan’s understated photos capture delicate elements of a time and places passed by, remains of an America seemingly so far gone, yet still so near.

The SCAD Museum of Art presents "data.tron/data.scan," an exhibition by acclaimed Japanese composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda, marking his first exhibition in the southeastern U.S. Ikeda’s practice explores the contemporary world of information and data. His immersive installations, sculptures and performances incorporate physical elements and properties of the smallest conceivable units including pixels of light, bits and bytes. Ikeda’s experiential works make mathematical equations visible through the use of sound and light.

"data.tron/data.scan" explores the vast universe of data that encompasses our everyday life, through an auditory and visual installation. The two pieces on view, "data.tron" and "data.scan" illustrate notions of randomness and offer engagement with digital data. "data.tron," an audio and visual projection, displays images of independent pixels moving in unison with rhythmic precision. Accompanied by "data.scan," a smaller sculptural work, it offers a visual representation of the mathematical space or "unit interval" between 0 and 1. Together, these two works offer an unparalleled experience with digital matter as contemporary art.

Alabama has a rich history of natural resources, from the coal, iron and limestone which are the key components in making steel to the deep marble deposits which run throughout the state. Equally, the region has a deep-rooted history as an area for artisans, craftsmen, craftswomen and fine artists to conduct material explorations utilizing both natural resources and found materials. It was that history inspired Sam Moyer to focus her studio attention to create a new bold body of work which utilizes Sylacauga marble–a marble only found in Central Alabama–as her primary medium. First discovered in 1814, Sylacauga marble has been most commonly used as an architectural medium, as well as an artistic material, and can be found in notable locations such as the translucent ceiling of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., Gutzon Borglum's bust of President Abraham Lincoln in the United States Capitol rotunda and the exterior of the United States Supreme Court building.

In this, the first solo museum exhibition of her career, Moyer channels not only the utilitarian and artistic histories of Sylacauga marble, but also delves into the esoteric notions of how both geological and human time become intertwined. Moyer Invites viewers to contemplate the delicate balance between nature, labor, human intervention, and material exploration. By manipulating the marble through carving, polishing, and shaping, and the canvas and fiber materials through cutting dying, strapping, and tearing, she unveils the inherent beauty of balance, pushing the boundaries of the cold stone's physical properties.

Moyer’s exploration of Sylacauga marble, her intuitive and originative approach to bridging the gap between painting and sculpture and exceptional craftswomanship imbues each piece with a sense of fluidity and dynamism – and has resulted in a series of both large-scale interactive sculptures, paintings, and film projection. In Moyer’s hands, the marble undergoes a metamorphosis, transitioning from its raw natural state to an ethereal presence that welcomes viewers to engage with and sit on the free-standing sculptures throughout the galleries and allows visitors to take a moment of reflection and internalize their own experiences with time and memory. In each of these newly created artworks, the museum goers encounter alluring patterned veining and delicate textures counterbalanced with angular machine cuts and painted pigments. Each work exemplifies the convergence of both geological time and Moyer’s economy of hand, thus embodying her own studies of memory, energy, and labor.

Her evocative sculptures and installation of participatory sculpture elicit a sense of timelessness while remaining firmly grounded in experimentation and personal reflection. By juxtaposing the raw stone with contemporary interventions, Moyer challenges traditional assumptions of both painting and sculpture, inviting viewers to question their own preconceptions of time, abstraction, their physical surroundings, and one’s own impact on nature.

The SCAD Museum of Art presents "To Dream the Electric Dream," a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based, multimedia, conceptual artist Saya Woolfalk. Her fantastical and elaborate artwork is rooted in the disciplines of anthropology, mythology and cultural studies. Woolfalk engages visual and cultural metaphors in her immersive afrofuturistic and Japanese inspired installations, tapestries, collages and paintings to explore how cultures differ and converge. As anthropologist and artist-messenger, Woolfalk engages with current and historical issues of colonization and self-identification.

Woolfalk’s study of how identities, cultures and myths fuse together inspired and informs her current body of work. For nearly a decade she has drawn from her multiracial lineage to create "The Empathics," her own hybridized plant and human species represented in part by the unexpected blending of a wide range of traditional artistic motifs. "The Empathics" were conceived by Woolfalk as a commentary on the intertwining of cultures in our increasingly globalized world, and as such, these fictional hybrids dissolve race, ethnicity and even taxonomy.

"To Dream the Electric Dream" chronicles the evolution of "The Empathics." These beings shed both physical and psychological layers before embracing new identities. "Chimera" is an installation of fiber elements and film that chronicles the transformation of "The Empathics." This culture is further mythologized by Woolfalk for her "Plant Alchemy" works on paper, which are supporting historical documentation of their species. Additional artifacts, hides and costumes are presented throughout this exhibition as evidence of "The Empathics" transformation.

Robert J. Shiller once said “Oppression thrives on distance, on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.” The works by artist Sheida Soleimani in the exhibition Oppress(er)(ed), seek to resurrect and memorialize the women that have been imprisoned, executed and otherwise erased from existence by the Iranian government. The women’s likenesses have been reproduced from low-res file photos into fabric sculptural effigies and photographs of elaborately constructed shrines.

Soleimani has been able dredge up the last remaining photos and digital residue that proved these women have ever existed and has created new works in memoriam to spread awareness of their ultimate sacrifices and the atrocities of the Iranian state. Soleimani references Albert Badura’s “Bobo Doll” experiments of 1961, where he was able to find the ease in which children adhere to violence after observing adults demonstrating aggression towards inanimate stuffed dolls. Often women are executed in public in Iran. Children are encouraged to watch and even participate in these executions. By creating soft sculptures of her own in the vein of the Bobo Doll, Soleimani seeks to overturn the learned apathy of the fate of these victims and uncover the state-endorsed violence towards women and dissidents of Iran. The women’s portraits in both soft sculptures and the photographs work to bring visitors into intimate moments of mourning, while simultaneously surrounding the entire space with depictions of their executioners.

Photos by Jeffrey Enriquez.

On March 7th, 2019 Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA) opened Shikeith’s installation, “notes towards becoming a spill”. This is Shikeith’s first solo exhibition in Atlanta, and is the first time this work has been shown publicly. The sound based installation is presented by Atlanta Contemporary museum in conjunction with its On-Site program and is curated by Aaron Levi Garvey and Stevie Covart Garvey of Long Road Projects.

In late 2018 Shikeith joined Long Road Projects to conduct the first portion of a multi-visit residency exploring the southern United States and lore of Florida blues. In “notes towards becoming a spill” Shikeith advances his constructions of “blue spaces” that explore the psychological states of contemporary black men. Shikeith’s specific use of Haint Blue within this and other activations comprise a larger constellation of site-specific works spanning the United States, references its deep-rooted history from the Gullah in South Carolina and Georgia. Haint is also Southern vernacular for ghost or spirit that has not moved on. Created from indigo, one of the common crops of the American South, the Gullah originated the color as a spiritual marker in their homes. Within the installation, Shikeith combines elements such as soil, mud, haint-blue paint, and audio recordings of black men spilling truths about themselves to cultivate a site of reconciliation that is rooted in a black ancestral remedy and rescription of legible black masculinities.

“The heads or subconscious lives of black men has been the recurring theme in all of my work. Owing to, there are ephemeral presences such as anti-blackness, criminalization, and the historical constructions of black masculinity that similar to ghosts, haunt the bodies and psyches of black men. These 'ghosts' have kept generations of black men, including myself, constrained to operating the world within restrictive boundaries. My art has long envisioned myself and other black men in the process of escaping and outside of these borders. In previous bodies of work, I looked to notions of intimacy and dreams...however, more recently, and with this installation, I am looking towards the spiritual methodologies and elements of Black-American material culture such as African American oral tradition and the ghost-tricking, haint-blue color of the Gullah to develop a vernacular encircling the possibility of Black men thriving in America."

Philadelphia-born Shikeith is a multifarious artist with overlapping practices as an internationally exhibiting visual artist (MoMA, Seattle Art Museum, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum), film director (selected works: #Blackmendream, A Drop of Sun Under The Earth ), and newly an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art. In Spring 2018 he graduated from Yale University’s M.F.A program where he began to work more intuitively across the mediums of sculpture, video, and photography. His work attempts an assemblage of personal truths and wonder that focuses on the metamorphoses of Black men, especially within a society that denies these men their erotic and reconciliatory potential and capital. It is the interior he considers—his own, as well as, other Black men or masculine people through emphasizing portraiture, sculpture, and film making to examine the fantastic as it relates and complicates personal autobiography and self-making. ‘notes towards becoming a spill’, is the first of three institutional solo shows for the emerging artist occurring this year with the next exhibition ‘The Language Must Not Sweat’, opening in April at Miami’s Locust Projects to be followed by ‘Imagining Flesh Through Shadows’ in October at the Alexander Brest Museum & Gallery at Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida.

The SCAD Museum of Art presents “Blood Bound,” an exhibition by artisan duo, brothers Steven and William Ladd, that is the first comprehensive look into their nearly two-decade-long collaborative studio practice. Widely recognized for their beading and textile work, the brothers Ladd are guided by three key principles and values: “Spend your life doing what you love. Be focused and disciplined. Collaborate.”

Steven, an accomplished seamster, and William, a master bead maker, came back together in adulthood after years of living apart and started their collaborative studio practice. Early in their careers, they created haute couture accessories for various international fashion houses. As the pieces became more delicate and intricate, and a safe place for display and packing became a concern, the duo began to create their own meticulously crafted boxes that serve as both reliquaries and precious objects. Simultaneously, a signature element of their practice emerged — the scroll. These circular forms made of scrap materials up-cycled into larger sculptural works are broadly featured in the exhibition.

“Blood Bound” exhibits all aspects of the Ladds' broad practice, including book and papermaking, beading, drawing, sewing, embroidery and site-specific installation. The exhibition focuses on the duo’s color and material selections, which are often based on personal memory and relationships. Textile color choices, for example, may relate to their grandmother’s rose garden, or a performance influenced by a camping trip with their father. The exhibition exemplifies how memories of early childhood, family and growing up in the Midwest create a deeply meaningful narrative that influences their palette and materials.

"Between Bloodlines and Floodlines,” an exhibition by artist Tameka Norris. Norris’s multidisciplinary practice explores issues of race, poverty and social politics, drawing on her own experiences and relationships as an underlying narrative. Through painting, performance, music and film, Norris explores her identity as an artist with roots in the deep American South.

The exhibition features a body of work that explores the artist’s response and experience of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans. Experiencing displacement firsthand and observing the impact Katrina had on her community and family deeply affected Norris. These experiences led to “Dun Floated Away,” a painting of her grandmother’s house that was destroyed, and which is a precursor to her “Post-Katrina” series. In this series Norris appropriates textiles (such as bed sheets and tablecloths) from her childhood home, stitching them together as foundations for her paintings or turning them into soft sculptures. The large-scale paintings on exhibition foreground Norris’s aggressive mark-making style, in which she recreates the landscape and familiar areas of her former home. Working from memory and photographs, the works become journal entries of sorts, marked by firsthand accounts and autobiographical narratives.

In her work, as in life, Norris is constantly looking to reinvent herself and break new ground, stating, “just as the city of New Orleans and places on the Gulf Coast struggle with progress and change, so do I as a person.” “Between Bloodlines and Floodlines” tracks Norris’ engagement with personal histories interwoven with a sense of place, translated into a contemplative collection of painting, photography, sculpture and site-specific wall drawings.

In recent years the global discussion over the natural environment has revolved around a pursuit of stabilization, salvage, preservation, and reversal. An effort for humankind to undo and regenerate the damages inflicted upon the wetlands, forests, and atmosphere around the globe at the hands of humans. However, what of these efforts other than new technologies and recycling accounts for our understanding of what denotes natural and unnatural.

In the early part of the 19th century, it was considered natural for John James Audubon to hunt and explore the North American wilderness in order to document species he encountered; Hunting animals within their natural habitats in the furthest reaches of the continent to examine and visually depict them within an artistic and educational context. While his observational work within the natural world resulted in the documentation of innumerable species of wildlife, until recently, there has been little mentioned about the effects of his invasive persona. His persona has become more recognizable, eclipsing the importance of the pursuit to understand our natural world in a manner which would alleviate invasion.

An invasive species–like an invasive idea–is an introduced foreign body to a host and Audubon was such.

The solo exhibition by Tommy Coleman, A New Nature & my problem with the vessel is the first exhibition in a new initiative highlighting notions of Radical Naturalism to bring contemporary artists inspired by nature and the natural world to engage with, question and critique the legacy of John James Audubon. Coleman, a born Floridian, has spent most of his life in the wetlands of South Florida observing the empathic and acrimonious relationships between flora, fauna, and his rural hometown community of Jupiter Farms.

Coleman’s drawings and sculptures navigate the boundaries between the wild and the domestic through recontextualizing wildlife (both native and invasive), the atmospheric, as well as the effects and affects of humankind's imprint on a region. This inaugural exhibition seeks to renegotiate our contemporary understanding of naturalism as an impossible task—nature and our understanding of it, how to manipulate it, and even how to save it has gotten in the way of our understanding of what’s natural.

In "Penwald: 8, 12 by 12 on Knees" Tony Orrico examines and explores his ability to transform his physical and mental endurance into visual compositions, using his body as a tool to outline a full range of motion.

"Penwald Drawings" is series of bilateral drawings in which Orrico uses both of his hands to draw. His performances are specific to a time and place but are not necessarily dependent on an audience. As Orrico contours and varies his positions — standing, kneeling, sitting and lying down — he is able to create marks that are seemingly similar, yet disparate. The end result of these efforts is a composition representing the transfer of the artist's physical and mental energies, an artifact to be left for future audiences.

Since the beginning of time, artists have been messengers of societal commentary. From the satirical works of William Hogarth criticizing the social inequalities in 18th Century England, to the Neo-Expressionistic activist works of Keith Haring raising awareness of the global AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, artists have held fast to their beliefs and been catalysts for change. This is even truer in our current social and political climate, as they continue to create works of great significance and cultural impact that parody, shock, protest, observe and critique.

We Are What We Eat is an exhibition which explores the global food concerns mankind faces in the new millennium. Both industrialized and non-industrialized countries share growing concerns about viable water sources for human and livestock consumption, sustainable farming as well as food production. The selected works of artists Liu Bolin (China), Ed Burtynsky (Canada), Jim Draper (U.S.), Pepe Lopez (Venezuela) and Vik Muniz (Brazil) delve deeply into concepts linked to population and economic growth, malnutrition, free range versus farmed proteins and over consumption. The exhibition is developed in conjunction with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2, to highlight the need for global food security through sustainable agricultural practices, and improved nutrition through activism and education.

The works chosen for this exhibition represent a cross section of international artists striving to raise awareness about global food concerns. Each of the artists in the exhibition uses their own voice and practice to convey unique and varied dialogs on resource sustainability. The works showcase specific regions that the artists visited, and where they observed alarming environmental scenarios.

Selections from Liu Bolin’s Mask series combine the traditional motifs of Peking Opera masks and commentary on the profoundly commercialized and ever developing values of Chinese society. Liu uses the logos of popular food and beverage companies, both American and Chinese, to decorate his masks – thereby inserting modern day giants of consumption and industry into the delicate and refined world of Chinese opera. By replacing the traditional Peking Opera masks with industrial welding masks, Liu Bolin seeks to comment on the confrontational and disruptive dichotomy of the Chinese economy and food industry. Two additional works from the artist’s well-known ongoing Hiding In The City series are also represented in the exhibition. Puffed Food and Vegetables lend viewers a glimpse of the imbalance between fresh vegetables and processed junk food. The two arresting images, in which Liu Bolin has painted himself into the background of each piece as a representative of the Chinese people, displays a visual disproportion of these two commodities in sheer volume and scale. The abundant and lively Puffed Food, invokes the spectacle that is the processed food industry, through bright artificial colors and overflowing supermarket shelves. Whereas Vegetables counters that image and industry by exhibiting lush vegetation, and brilliant natural colors on well manicured and highly organized produce market shelves.

The sole work by Ed Burtynsky included in the exhibition is from his Water series. The photograph Drylands Farming #32 Monegros County, Aragon, Spain delves into the tradition of dryland farming in northeastern parts of Spain. The semi-arid land is prone to drought and high winds, resulting in scarce water sources and an immediate need for industrial irrigations systems. Aside from the small amount of natural rainfall in this region, the only other natural sources of water are salt lagoons. The lack of viable non-salinic water in this region and in Burtynsky’s documentation draws attention to broader growing concern for global water shortages.

Since the landing of Juan Ponce de Leon in the southeast of the United States in 1503, the populations of various indigenous animals have waxed and waned in the region as a result of the introduction of imported non-indigenous wildlife. Jim Draper’s PRODUCE series examines the long-term effects of introducing outside animal species into unfamiliar regions and the impact on native species. The subtle yet poignant serigraph suite presents a grouping of hybrid free-range animals found within the South East United States, which are now more common throughout the wild over indigenous species. The decline in quality and sustainability of these organic proteins has become a source of concern in the United States as well as other areas of the globe, due to the insertion of outside invasive species and over industrialization. The lasting effects on mankind’s native animal protein sources have not only drawn concerns about the quality of the animals we harvest, but also the health of those who consume these lesser proteins. Such concerns include such as low amino acid counts, affecting muscular health, and increased risks of cancers from processed non-organic proteins.

The Guapísimas (Gorgeous) series of work by Pepe Lopez focuses on the global interaction between industrialized and traditional production of food sources. With his four works, Lopez draws parallels between nearly forgotten traditional harvesting methods and the commercialization of sugar and coffee production, re-appropriating corporate logos of fast food companies onto traditional harvesting baskets. By stripping away the baskets’ customary functionality, Lopez calls into question the ethics of consumption and the over processing of rich natural commodities by the corporate world of food production.

Vik Muniz’s subtle and honest Sugar Children photograph series is presented in its entirety in the exhibition. These beautifully displayed portraits of child laborers, whom the artist befriended in the Caribbean, tell stories of life on a small farm and the socio-economic difficulties encountered there. Muniz also confronts the phasing out of small farms due to the industrialization of the sugar cane industry, thereby forcing an already at risk community of workers into an every more unstable way of life, where wages and food are not guaranteed.

Together, this selected body of art comes together to make a profound statement in addressing the multileveled global food concerns facing our planet. The worldwide numbers on these issues are staggering and rapidly growing at an alarming rate. The hope of We Are What We Eat is to bring forward a unified voice in ending global hunger, malnutrition and water shortages.