MICHÈLE PEARSON CLARKE, SUCK TEETH COMPOSITIONS, 2018
This three-channel video and sound installation presents a choral symphony structured around the everyday Caribbean oral gesture of sucking teeth. Referred to variously as kiss teeth, steups, chups, and stchoops, to suck teeth is to produce a sound by sucking in air through the teeth, while pressing the tongue against the upper or lower teeth, with the lips pursed or slightly flattened…
SADIE BARNETTE, THE FBI PROJECT, 2016-ONGOING
The FBI Project (2016 — ongoing) employs a variety of material interventions engaging the FBI’s 500-page surveillance file amassed on my father, Rodney Barnette, during his time organizing with the Black Panther Party and helping Angela Davis in her fight for exoneration…
MALCOLM PEACOCK, FIVE OF THEM WERE HERS AND SHE CARVED SHELTERS WITH WINDOWS INTO THE BACKS OF THEIR SKULLS, 2024
The central work of Peacock’s exhibition is a sculptural interpretation of a redwood tree trunk with synthetic hair braids forming its bark. It is so realistic in size that it appears as if it was freshly cut and placed in the gallery…
SANDRA BREWSTER, ROOTS, 2021-2022
In her outdoor photographic installation, Roots, Toronto-based artist Sandra Brewster explores the long history of Black presence in the urban wilderness. Developed during her tenure as Koerner Artist in Residence at Evergreen Brick Works, the photographs document the area’s plant life, greeting visitors as they explore the valley…
SONYA CLARK, BLACK HAIR FLAG, 2010
Traditional African American hairstyling techniques become the stars and stripes of the American flag against a backdrop of the Confederate Battle flag. The piece celebrates the roles African Americans played in the building of our nation…
MONA HATOUM, DEEP THROAT, 1996
Mona Hatoum has set the table for us with this artwork, Deep Throat, from 1996. The installation includes a table, roughly 3 feet square and just over 4 feet high, covered in a tablecloth with a single place setting and wooden chair in front of it…
SHIKEITH, STILL WATERS RUN DEEP, 2021
Shikeith explores how Black queer re-making is a sacred space and practice in his two-part installation, still waters run deep / fall in your ways (2021). Using poetry, historical narratives, ambient recordings of children's rhymes, shades of blue, dance, and organic elements such as water, Shikeith maps Black men's negotiations of intimacy and routes toward freedom beyond architectural and societal constraints…
RENEE COX, IT SHALL BE NAMED, 1994
In this 1992 work by Cox, a collage in the shape of a crucifix, is intricately constructed from several manipulated photographic negatives…
SHIGEKO KUBOTA, DUCHAMPIANA: NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE, 1976
Inspired by Duchamp's study of motion in his painting, Nude descending a staircase (1912), Kubota uses video to explore movement and temporality. In this single-channel combination of color video, color-synthesized video, and color Super-8 film transferred to video…
DREAD SCOTT, A MAN WAS LYNCHED BY POLICE YESTERDAY, 2015
In 2015, Walter Scott fled for his life, stalked by a policeman who then cold bloodedly shot him in the back. We all saw the video and in response to this murder I made the artwork, “A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday…
SHARON HAYES, WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE, THEY SAID, 2014
I was intrigued by the question of how one shouts in text. I was engaged by the ambition and impossibility of the demand that is being made. And I was moved by the complexities that trans politics brings to the political identification with a term like “women”…
SUE DE BEER, DISAPPEAR HERE, 2004
The first intercut image in the short video Disappear Here presents a sheet cake, as from a child's birthday party, showing the sentence "The recollection is a cascade of spatial metaphors" in frosting…
NANDITA RAMAN, WHEN MOUNTAINS RISE AND FALL LIKE WAVES
Louise Bourgeois talks of the unconscious and attempts to draw a petal on a grid. The grid and the unconscious are so far apart that a spacious ground emerges between them. This body of work finds the opposites only to discover that the distance between them is contingent on where one stands...
NJAIMEH NJIE, DID YOU GET EVERYTHING?
What do we take, and what is left behind when we leave home? With audio and visual collage, this installation takes visitors inside the collective memory of a fictional family that is leaving their home...
LAURIE ANDERSON, HABEAS CORPUS, 2015
Iconic performance artist Laurie Anderson expands upon her work fusing storytelling and technology, creating an installation and performance piece that examines lost identity, memory, and the resiliency of the human body and spirit...
MICKALENE THOMAS, OH MICKEY, 2008
My video and painting installation Oh Mickey! (2008), was inspired by a Balthus painting called La Toilette. In the Balthus, a young girl is wearing lube socks and red slippers, standing alone in an intimate interior space. In my piece, I have a model standing in one of my installations completely nude, except for tube socks and red heels, singing Toni Basil's “Mickey” song...
JUDITH BARRY, IMAGINATION, 1991
An androgynous head is projected as if contained within a minimalist cube. Sounds of the head slowly breathing fill the space. The head is serene, waiting. Suddenly a substance pours over it from all sides, drenching it in what appears to be a bodily fluid. The spectator wants to turn away but can not, the gaze is compelled through the invocation of the scopic drive...
JORDAN WOLFSON, FEMALE FIGURE, 2014
Artist Jordan Wolfson's (Female figure), 2014, is an immersive environment that features a robotic sculpture. For seven minutes, the robot gives monologues and dances to pop songs. Startling and unnerving, the work raises the specter of misogyny and exposes fissures in pop culture...
TRACEY EMIN, EVERYONE I HAVE EVER SLEPT WITH 1963–1995, 1995
Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 or The Tent was an actual tent embroidered with one hundred and two names of the people Tracey Emin had ever slept with until the time of its production in 1995...
EBONY G. PATTERSON,... THREE KINGS WEEP ..., 2018
Ebony G. Patterson uses lavish surfaces and verdant motifs to entice viewers to contemplate not only the power of beauty and fashion but also historical and contemporary violence against Black people. In . . . three kings weep . . ., a trio of young men shed tears as they sit silently before a backdrop of floral wallpaper and fluttering artificial butterflies...