Opening Reception – Black in Place

Image: Denise ‘deLaSNP’ Coke, Bodega (Just Another Day), 2022. Canvas with augmented reality capabilities.

Join us for the Opening Reception of Black in Place, a group exhibition curated by Naomi Stewart. This free, public event will include a performance of Ancestral Libation by Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja.

Black in Place is a holding space for invocation, re-memory, and unbridled Black expression. Remedying erasure that historically fueled what esteemed African-American collectors Bernard and Shirley Kinsey refer to as the “myth of absence,” artworks in this exhibition dispel the notion that what is unseen does not exist. The paradox of existing while being rendered invisible is an ongoing reality for the Black Diaspora, particularly in the West. This exhibition interrogates the living contradictions of existing while Black, invocates ancestral and indigenous wisdom, and explores how Black artists cultivate dreaming through making.

The artists presented are Leslie Adkins, Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja, Denise ‘deLaSNP’ Coke, Dea Jenkins, Steven A. Johnson II, Kandy G. Lopez, Rosalyn Myles, Cheyann Washington, and Fallon Williams. Their art practices reflect journeys of cultural enunciation and recontextualization of Black expression, particularly in white-dominated spaces. Through audio, portraiture, painting, digital/Augmented Reality, fiber art, poetry, drawing, and installation, the artworks engage hidden narratives, ancestral wisdom and unbridled expression to both sow and assert Black existence.