“THE TRANSITION FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY CORRESPONDS TO THE IMAGE THAT DISAPPEARS IN THE PRINTMAKING PROCESSES (ETCHING) AND THEN REAPPEARS (PRINTED ON THE PAPER). MY WORK CALLS TO THE NEED FOR A SEARCH FOR JUSTICE AND TRUTH, WHICH BY NO MEANS IS FINITE OR TERMINAL, BUT RATHER AN INITIATIVE THAT EXISTS IN AND WITH TIME."
Installation view, In Their Memory, 2015
MIRROR MIRROR
Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, NJ
Mar 19, 2018 - Dec 20, 2018
Curators: PRG
Link to the exhibit: Mirror Mirror
ABOUT
Mirror Mirror presents works in a variety of media from thirty-two international emerging and established artists and one artist collective to plumb the relationship between identity, cultural norms, and representation. In the most abbreviated of forms, a portrait is a depiction of a person, usually a face, occasionally a torso, sometimes more of the body, or even a symbolic presentation of an aspect of an individual’s character. The artists in the show have approached the subject of portraiture in a multitude of ways. Historically, portraiture was utilized in service of the ruling classes, and some of the works in the exhibition explore the machinations of the powerful, touching upon the fraught histories of colonialism, slavery, American inference abroad, and eugenic practices. Photography is presented in both documentary modes and as a means to deconstruct representations of femininity, adolescence, and motherhood. Other artists work in non-traditional media, exploring the portrait painted by our data and bacteria, and radical possibilities of self-invention through new virtual and bio technologies. Taken as a whole, the works in Mirror Mirror communicate the connected nature of representation and self-determination.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 140-page illustrated catalog with essays from Susan Bright, Amanda Cachia, Nell Painter, Dorothy Santos, Jay Stanley, Anne Swartz, Jorge Daniel Veneciano, and Carla Christopher Waid, amongst others. Mirror Mirror includes a dynamic schedule of free, public and educational programs that include a performance of David Antonio Cruz’s green,howiwantyougreen; artist talks from Kevin Darmanie, Riva Lehrer, Peggie Miller, Kevin Blythe Sampson, Laura Splan; curator tours; workshops, and more.
ARTISTS
Manuel Acevedo / Zoë Charlton / Paolo Cirio / David Antonio Cruz / Kevin Darmanie / E.V. Day / Leah DeVun / Nona Faustine / Tatyana Fazlalizadeh / Anne-Karin Furunes / Phyllis Galembo/ Chitra Ganesh / William Kentridge / Riva Lehrer / Ani Liu / Jessamyn Lovell / Hyphen-Labs / Peggie Miller / Anna Ogier-Bloomer / Polixeni Papapetrou / Patricia Piccinini / Wendy Red Star / Faith Ringgold / Kevin Blythe Sampson / María Verónica San Martín / Leo Selvaggio / Laura Splan / Dread Scott / Beat Streuli / Arne Svenson / Shoshanna Weinberger / Deborah Willis / Martha Wilson