Radcluffe Bailey "Travelogue" at Jack Shainman's The School
May 20, 2018 22:15:00 GMT
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Post by sɐǝpı ɟo uoıʇɐɹǝpǝɟ on May 20, 2018 22:15:00 GMT
We are pleased to celebrate the fourth anniversary of The School with Travelogue, a survey exhibition in the main space by Radcliffe Bailey, along with a concurrent series of solo exhibitions by Nina Chanel Abney, Shimon Attie, Math Bass, Valérie Blass, Vibha Galhotra, Brad Kahlhamer, Margaret Kilgallen, Lyne Lapointe, Gordon Parks, and Leslie Wayne.
Working primarily between the mediums of sculpture and painting, Radcliffe Bailey incorporates found objects and photographs into textured compositions that address history, ancestry, migration, and collective memory. The cultural significance and rhythmic properties of music are also important influences which can be seen throughout his oeuvre. In Windward Coast – West Coast Slave Trade (2009-2011) a crescendo of piano keys swell in turbulent waves, recalling the lives lost in Middle Passage. A glittering black head nested amidst the roiling mass pays tribute to those who did not complete the journey. Bailey weighs tragedy against passageways, both mitigated by the overwhelming power of water.
In Other Worlds Worlds (2011), Bailey considers music as a kind of cosmic and spiritual transport. A vivid red album by Sun Ra anchors a constellation of orbs that recall a scholastic model of the solar system, a further visual nod to the godfather of Afrofuturism. The sculpture celebrates the unifying power of music and the legendary jazz musician and philosopher who pushed the limitations of western tradition through his radical compositions, reimagining a (present) future. Sun Ra’s multi-disciplinary exploration of time, space, and their place for people of color is mirrored in the diversity of Bailey’s material approach.
With works spanning from 2002 through 2018, Bailey incorporates a multitude of mediums. Often quilt-like in aesthetic, his practice creates links between diasporic histories and potential futures, investigating the evolution or stagnation of notions of identity. It is Bailey’s exploration into such varied concepts and methods that serves as a springboard into our concurrent solo presentations.
Working primarily between the mediums of sculpture and painting, Radcliffe Bailey incorporates found objects and photographs into textured compositions that address history, ancestry, migration, and collective memory. The cultural significance and rhythmic properties of music are also important influences which can be seen throughout his oeuvre. In Windward Coast – West Coast Slave Trade (2009-2011) a crescendo of piano keys swell in turbulent waves, recalling the lives lost in Middle Passage. A glittering black head nested amidst the roiling mass pays tribute to those who did not complete the journey. Bailey weighs tragedy against passageways, both mitigated by the overwhelming power of water.
In Other Worlds Worlds (2011), Bailey considers music as a kind of cosmic and spiritual transport. A vivid red album by Sun Ra anchors a constellation of orbs that recall a scholastic model of the solar system, a further visual nod to the godfather of Afrofuturism. The sculpture celebrates the unifying power of music and the legendary jazz musician and philosopher who pushed the limitations of western tradition through his radical compositions, reimagining a (present) future. Sun Ra’s multi-disciplinary exploration of time, space, and their place for people of color is mirrored in the diversity of Bailey’s material approach.
With works spanning from 2002 through 2018, Bailey incorporates a multitude of mediums. Often quilt-like in aesthetic, his practice creates links between diasporic histories and potential futures, investigating the evolution or stagnation of notions of identity. It is Bailey’s exploration into such varied concepts and methods that serves as a springboard into our concurrent solo presentations.