Eliana Willis

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    Colonial Williamsburg’s Art Museums Just Reopened After a $42 Million Renovation. Also Updated: Their Narrative About Early American History

    Art institutions around the globe are reckoning with legacy of racism and colonialism. But what happens when your institution is literally dedicated to celebrating colonial history? In recent years, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia has been working to re-examine its treatment if history to render a more accurate picture of early America, sins and all.
    Visitors got a first look at the results when the Art Museums at Colonial Williamsburg reopened late last month. Following a major three-year renovation, the museums boast a new 65,000-square-foot wing, an expanded entrance, and 25 percent more gallery space, allowing curators to showcase objects previously in storage. (Larger common areas, including a new cafe and museum store, will also in handy as social distancing rules are enforced.)

    Installation view, “Early American Faces.” Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

    The $41.7 million project, funded by donors, allowed curators the time and space to develop more ambitious exhibitions, including “Early American Faces,” which strives to showcase the array of individuals—enslaved, free, white, Black, and American Indian—represented within the museum’s holdings.
    The show is the brainchild of chief curator Ron Hurst, who oversees the collections at both art museums as well as some 200 period rooms, preservation of the historic area’s 600 buildings, and its archeology and conservation programs.
    As part of its rethink, the museums updated their wall labels to address the previous erasure of slaves at Colonial Williamsburg. The initiative, steered by Hurst, means that decorative objects, tools, and other pieces of the collection that were previously labeled as the work of one individual will now note that slaves also contributed—and, in many cases, actually created the works entirely, previously without credit.
    According to Jamar Jones, an actor who has played roles at the living history museum including that of Jupiter, an enslaved manservant to Thomas Jefferson, “Speaking the names of enslaved individuals is particularly vital because sometimes that is all that is available to us. A name and the monetary value assigned to their life.”

    The new entrance to the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, June 2020. Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

    Over the course of the shutdown, operations at Colonial Williamsburg remained relatively unscathed: the institution managed to avoid layoffs, with many staff members pivoting to telework, and others performing tasks in person at a safe distance, according to the institution. Restaurants that typically serve tourists operated a volunteer program to feed community members outdoors in Williamsburg’s gardens, providing 25,000 meals to children who were out of school and without access to regular meals.
    Speaking to Artnet News, Hurst stressed the importance of maintaining a historically accurate record, while also acknowledging the gross disparities among African American and European settlers. The former, which included both free and enslaved individuals, made up at least 51 percent of the population during the Revolutionary era. They are represented by Black actors as part of the “living history” museum.
    Hurst notes that, as is often the case with formal, historically white-led history institutions, objects that survived and continue to be celebrated were those owned by the wealthy. But Williamsburg is working to continue its archaeological examination of the site to enrich its understanding of Black history. Among the discoveries are networks of underground storage that show how slaves hid valuable possessions.
    “Objects that survived from the past are so frequently those associated with people who had means,” Hurst said. Archaeology, he added, “allows us to bring forth those artifacts that speak to the experiences of people of color.”
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    ‘I Don’t Work Based on Fiction’: How Colombian Artist Doris Salcedo Uses the Absurd to Illuminate Real-Life Tragedy

    The artist Doris Salcedo is not interested in depicting her personal experiences through art. Instead she tries to give life to the experiences of others, especially the silenced masses who are lost to violence or disenfranchisement.
    “I am a third-world artist,” the Colombian-born Salcedo says in an exclusive interview with Art21, adding that she puts herself in the position to speak “from the perspective of the victim, from the perspective of the defeated people.”
    In the video interview, which originally aired as part of Art21’s Art in the Twenty-First Century series, Salcedo recounts visiting the sites of mass death and destruction and researching the lives of people who were disappeared, unearthing their stories through her work. She describes herself as taking on the role of a “secondary witness” to the travesties of history. “I don’t work based on imagination, on fiction.”
    Salcedo’s works are subtle, though they pack a huge emotional charge. Often they are exercises in futility. One, the project Unland, involved embroidering hair into the grain of wood. The artist cites the poet Paul Celan, who once said, “It is only absurdity which shows the presence of the human.”

    Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth at The Tate Modern gallery in 2007. Courtesy of Getty Images.

    The interview also features Salcedo’s assistants, part of a 15-person crew who help her bring seemingly impossible ideas into being, often involving their own personal pain and suffering. Ramón Villamarin, who acts as a sort of engineer for Salcedo, notes, “Doris always tries to make something kind of impossible.”
    This commitment to the impossible was well in evidence in her Tate Modern Turbine Hall commission, a stunning 160-meter long crack that ran the length of the building’s chic, industrial floor. The title, Shibboleth (2007), is taken from the Bible and refers to a massacre perpetrated over a minor difference. For Salcedo, the physical crack in an otherwise pristine temple of modernism and wealth suggests the pervasive history of racism and colonialism.
    In describing the cleaved floor, Salcedo explains, “I wanted this crack to break the building and intrude… almost the same way a nonwhite immigrant intrudes in the sameness and consensus of white society.” 

    Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Art in the Twenty-First Century, below.
    [embedded content]

    This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking artists. A new series of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series like New York Close Up and Extended Play and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.

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    Self-Taught Artist William Scott’s Fantastical Utopian Visions Get Their First New York Show in Over a Decade—See Them Here

    As galleries and art institutions around the world begin to reopen, we are spotlighting individual shows—online and IRL—that are worth your attention.
    “William Scott: It’s a Beautiful Day Outside” at Ortuzar ProjectsThrough September 26, 2020

    What the gallery says: “If there is a proclivity to label self-taught artists as ‘visionaries,’ it is also because a lack of specialized training promises the subversion of disciplinary boundaries; allowing perception through and beyond the rigid systems that structure—and sometimes stifle, or close down—our expectations for art, for each other, our imagination, and ourselves. The principal vision that all Scott’s works in various media propose is a utopian world that exists in no time like the present, but instead draws on memories of the past, and collective hope in the future, to finally make peace with the condition of human frailty.”
    Why it’s worth a look: It’s the first New York show in more than a decade for the San Leandro, California-based artist William Scott. He is often categorized as a “visionary” or “outsider” artist because he is self-taught, the gallery says, but the lack of conventional training is a benefit to Scott’s freewheeling and imaginative practice.
    The exhibition, which spans decades of the artist’s career, showcases Scott’s layered and detailed imaginary worlds, populated by famous figures and ordinary people from his own life alike. The fantastical elements: citizen-ships that promise a “Skyline Friendly Organization” are bound for space with the likes of Janet Jackson, Curtis Johnson, and Deena Jones on board—a perfect sci-fi future in the artist’s eyes.
    A series of papier-mâché busts depicting Spiderman, Darth Vader, and Frankenstein’s monster are actually masks worn by the artist to assume a new identity. In detailed compositions of city streets that could serve as animation cels, the artist commits every aspect of his environment to the page from various angles, the earthly realm he dwells in while he imagines the limitless future of his imagination.
    What it looks like:

    Installation view, “William Scott: It’s A Beautiful Day Outside.” Courtesy of Ortuzar Projects.

    William Scott, Untitled (ca. 2007). Courtesy of the artist and Ortuzar Projects.

    William Scott, Untitled (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Ortuzar Projects.

    William Scott, Untitled (2019). Courtesy of the artist and Ortuzar Projects. More

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    Two Years Ago, Curators Conceived of a Riga Biennial as a Reply to Apocalyptic Narratives. They Had No Idea Just How Relevant It Would Be

    Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, the curator of the second Riga biennale, RIBOCA2, labored for two years with her team to mount an exhibition whose topic would be, in a nutshell, finding hope in the face of the end of the world. They did not expect that a mere two months before the biennial’s opening they would actually face the end of the world—or at least the world as they knew it.
    The original format of the exhibition, which had been slated to open across several locations in the Latvian capital this past May, was thrown out the window as the Baltic country went into lockdown on March 13. Plans kept morphing as the days went by, but it soon became painfully clear that gatherings and travel would be impossible.
    “But we knew this exhibition had to open this year,” RIBOCA2’s executive director, Anastasia Blokhina told journalists during a preview. “The show was about what was happening in the world!”
    Her hope became a reality. The young biennial, once a stop along what would have been a clogged art calendar, now stands out as one of the lone events to take place in a year of cancelations and dashed plans. The biennial finally opened to the public in a much reduced and altered format on August 20, with members of the art world gathering at a defunct and dilapidated industrial site by Riga’s port.
    The necessarily curbed ambitions of the biennial did not stop artists coming up with incisive reinventions for their planned pieces. As countries around Europe teeter towards another alarming uptick in infection rates heading into fall, RIBOCA’s title, “and suddenly it all blossoms,” hints at optimism—though Lamarche-Vadel that it contains ambiguity as well: “But what does this ‘it’ refer to?”
    Nikolay Smirnov, Religious Libertarians (2020). Commissioned by the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, RIBOCA. Photo by Hedi Jaansoo. Courtesy of the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art.

    Curating with Covid-19
    “I have to acknowledge Covid-19 as my co-curator,” Lamarche-Vadel quipped during the press preview, referring not only to the many ways in which the artworks have been altered, but also to how differently they may be interpreted. The biennial, originally planned to run for five months, will remain on view for three weeks only.
    To compensate for the reduced duration, and capture the collision of its curatorial concept with reality, Lamarche-Vadel enlisted acclaimed Latvian film director Dāvis Sīmanis to produce a feature-length film on the show, with an original score by up-and-coming musician and producer Lafawndeh. The goal is to circulate it in the major film festivals and, hopefully, hold public screenings next spring and summer—abiding by whatever safety restrictions regarding large gatherings will make up the new normal by then, of course. 
    That RIBOCA2 could welcome visitors at all has largely to do with the fact that Latvia, and the Baltic region in general, reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic swiftly and uncompromisingly: the country went into full lockdown 11 days after the coronavirus had been confirmed to have arrived there, and reopened in late June. So far, less than 1,500 infections and 30 coronavirus-related deaths have been recorded. That good behavior certainly paid off in some respects for the biennial’s crisis planning: though the biennial consists of 85 percent new commissions, 60 percent of the artists are based in the Baltic region.
    RIBOCA2 port building venue at Andrejsala. Photos by Elena Kononova.

    A Balancing Act
    But the Baltic nations’ precautionary measures were not the only reason why the opening was possible. Lamarche-Vadel, who is the director of the Fondation Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, had already shaped the curatorial concept around imagining new ways of being in the world, focusing on the preservation of resources and the abandonment of extractive industries. Most of the 48 participating artists’ works were originally planned to be produced locally rather than shipped across the globe. By the time lockdown had been enforced, several of the works were ready. 
    Pieces that couldn’t be shipped were adapted to the new conditions. Ugo Rondinone’s wall installation Life Time, from the artist’s series of larger-than-life neon “rainbow poems,” didn’t make it over from Switzerland. Instead, it was recreated locally with plywood, and painted the colors of the rainbow flag on-site. It hangs over a small doorway cut into a brick wall in an enormous hangar, like an inscription over a gateway to the biennial’s sprawling post-industrial site.
    Behind that wall, US artist Bridget Polk presents an arrangement of temporary sculptures. As its title suggests, the installation Balancing Rocks and Rubble is made of rocks and construction debris stacked on top of each other without using glue or any reinforcement other than gravity. Potentially unstable, the enchanting formations could collapse at any moment.
    About a decade ago, Polk received the moniker “Rock Lady” as fans would gather to watch her balance rocks along the banks of the Hudson River. Recovering from addiction at the time, stacking became a meditative practice for her. She’s one of the few artists who traveled to Riga from the United States (an odyssey involving many stops and emergency calls to the Latvian team at every border) and here she will continue to stack—or sometimes purposely topple over—heavy rubble collected on location for the next three weeks.
    Daina Taimiņa Dreams and Memories (2020). Commissioned by the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, RIBOCA2. Photo by Heidi Jaansoo. Courtesy of the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art.

    New Ecosystems
    Today, stray cats and street dogs roam the abandoned industrial complex, Andrejsala, its grounds overgrown with wild weeds and plants. Some of the biennial’s works pay tribute to the flora and fauna. Vija Enina, a Latvian herbalist, seed bombed the premises in late winter. As visitors walk through the open-air section of the show, they might notice the aromatic verdure sprouting from the cracks in the asphalt.
    Elsewhere, a pack of dogs replaces the humans who were supposed to be cast for Dora Budor’s work, now retitled In The Year Of (companion piece). The artist had intended to direct a group of “extras” to gather at random, as a nod to the dystopian site’s cinematic qualities. Now, four-legged creatures gather around a trainer with a bag of treats.
    Meanwhile, Danish artist Nina Beier’s installation Total Loss includes two marble lions, of the variety found in entrances to neo-classical mansions, lying on their side. Milk, an offering for the site’s feral cats, is regularly poured into the statues’ crevices. The use of milk is telling: our economies are designed to milk every resource; factory farming and dairy production are among the highest sources of CO2 emissions.
    But there’s more to the allegory of Total Loss. Beier’s installation was accompanied by a one-time performance on August 22, in which Range Rovers, parked outside the port building, offer shelter for a group of pregnant women. This pairing of one of the most wasteful vehicles ever designed and women about to bring children into an overpopulated world could be read as a comment on the bleak future of a human race obsessed with market growth.
    Augustas Serapinas, Mudmen (2020). Commissioned by the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art. RIBOCA2. Photo by Hedi Jaansoo. Courtesy of the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art.

    To be sure, the adaptability of artists and the art world will become increasingly important in the years to come. Lithuanian artist Augustas Serapinas also had to deal with botched plans for his site-specific installation for the biennial, but not because of the pandemic. He initially devised a plan to hang around snowy parks with a group of assistants and wait for people to build snowmen and then scoop up the icy creations, sneak them into van, and scan them to be replicated in other materials before returning them to their original spots.
    But it never snowed in Latvia due to record-high temperatures that hit Europe this year, and so Serapinas’s legion of Mudmen—a multitude of bulbous stacks of mud and hay—stand in their place. It’s an important reminder of what Lamarche-Vadel was already chipping away at before the pandemic brought it all into focus: Covid-19 may be an agitator, but the old world was already slipping away. It’s high time to imagine a new one. 
    RIBOCA2, “and suddenly it all blossoms,” is on view at Andrejsala, Riga from 20 August through 13 September, 2020.
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    Susan Chen’s Richly Layered Portraits of Asian Americans Make Their New York Gallery Debut—See Images Here

    As galleries and art institutions around the world begin to reopen, we are spotlighting individual shows—online and IRL—that are worth your attention.
    “Susan Chen: On Longing” at Meredith Rosen Gallerythrough September 19, 2020

    What the gallery says: “Chen’s work is a navigation of identity and belonging. Her practice embodies these themes both internally and externally: the painting process prompts inward reflection while the paintings themselves provide outward representation.
    Chen paints to answer questions about her own identity and to address the lack of Asian Americans in Western portraiture. When painting Asian Americans, Chen is at once powerful and vulnerable. As an artist, she can grant visibility to her community through her work. As an Asian American, she must confront her own fears and desires in every portrait. ‘On Longing’ represents her embrace of this dichotomy.”
    Why it’s worth a look: The layers of colors and textures in Chen’s portraits, not to mention the intricately detailed backgrounds her subjects populate, point to someone enamored with the practice of painting. Thanks to quarantine, Chen’s work in this show feels single-minded and true to its setting. You can hear the commotion from the street scenes and feel the warmth from a cozy-bordering-on-claustrophobic living room. In the painting Street Cars of Desire, the artist herself appears reading Jerry Saltz’s book How to Be an Artist as train cars chug around the canvas bearing the names of painters she admires both living and dead: Soutine, Matisse, Bonnard, Hockney, Susanna Coffey, Aliza Nisenbaum.
    As a first-generation immigrant, Chen found her subjects through chat forums for other Asian Americans, and as described by the gallery, invited some she encountered to be her models. Maybe that’s the reason why some of the characters in her work appear uncomfortable, but more likely it is the disquietude of being “other.” In the work About Face, a quartet of girls stand awkwardly in front of a university building, one of them holding a book with the title Racial Melancholia. 
    What it looks like:

    Installation view, “Susan Chen: On Longing” at Meredith Rosen Gallery. Photo: Adam Reich.

    Susan Chen, Arnie’s (2020). Photo: Adam Reich, courtesy Meredith Rosen Gallery.

    Susan Chen, Tadashi Mitsui (2020). Photo: Adam Reich, courtesy Meredith Rosen Gallery.

    Installation view, “Susan Chen: On Longing” at Meredith Rosen Gallery. Photo: Adam Reich.

    Susan Chen, About Face (2020). Photo: Adam Reich, courtesy Meredith Rosen Gallery.

    Susan Chen, Nude Self Portrait (2020). Photo: Adam Reich, courtesy Meredith Rosen Gallery.

    Susan Chen, COVID-19 Survival Kit (2020). Photo: Adam Reich, courtesy Meredith Rosen Gallery.

    Susan Chen, Yang Gang (2019). Photo: Adam Reich, courtesy Meredith Rosen Gallery.

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    ‘Anything Can Become Material for Art’: Watch Artist Pedro Reyes Turn Guns Into Musical Instruments and Marxist Theory Into a Puppet Show

    When the artist Pedro Reyes says “I believe anything can become material for art,” he truly means anything. To date, he’s turned guns into musical instruments, proposed crickets as an environmentally friendly source of protein, and staged puppet shows featuring Karl Marx and Adam Smith to explain the different ideas behind socialism and capitalism. For Reyes, being an artist isn’t about creating things, but rather creating experiences and ideas.
    A trained architect, the Mexico City native defines himself today as a sculptor. “I’m very concerned with form and materials,” he told Art21 in an exclusive interview. But as an an artist, “you’re requested to reinvent the rules,” he said. “Artists change the perception of things.”
    In practice, this gives Reyes a playful approach to making art. He encourages viewers to participate with his work, and sometimes even in its creation.
    Speaking to Art21 as part of the “Art in the Twenty-First Century” series, Reyes describes a project where he hosted a People’s United Nations, which featured role-playing participants who discussed social and political issues, adding an element of play to an otherwise serious exercise.
    “I love my life, it’s super fun,” he tells Art21. “You’re like a kid, and everybody gets to do what you wish and it happens. It’s amazing.”
    Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Art in the Twenty-First Century, below.
    [embedded content]

    This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking artists. A new series of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series like New York Close Up and Extended Play and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.

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    Top Contemporary Artists Put Their Stamp on Flower Paintings in This Beautiful Bouquet of a Group Show at Karma Gallery—See It Here

    As galleries and art institutions around the world begin to reopen, we are spotlighting individual shows—online and IRL—that are worth your attention.

    “(Nothing but) Flowers” at KarmaThrough September 13, 2020
    What the gallery says: “The flower persists throughout art history. It figures prominently across memento mori still lifes; huaniao hua bird-and-flower motifs; the intricate patterning of Mbuti bark cloths; the tendrils and palmettes of Islamic miniatures. Botanical symbolism spans libertine excess, Dionesian glut, and delicate innocence; it evokes vanity, fertility, and the mortal coil.
    “Yet most essentially for the present day, the tending and gifting of flowers is steeped in cultural practice. As balms of solace and support during times of remembrance and growth, blooms connote the sharing of emotion, and are given in sympathy, love, joy, or appreciation.”
    Why it’s worth a look: Walking around New York after dusk these days, it can almost feel like any other summer day, with lights draped across al fresco sidewalk dining rooms, dogs roving once again in grassy parks, and—yes—flowers blooming everywhere.
    This show at Karma is the artful equivalent of that bittersweet haze: some of the flora are drooping, or shedding petals as they near the end of their season, while others are pulsing with color and life.
    This group show—which includes works by Nicole Eisenman, Hilary Pecis, Peter Doig, Susan Jane Walp, and Henni Alftan, among others—features artists with as diverse backgrounds as the flowers they’ve committed to canvas, and is the perfect respite for a summer afternoon.
    What it looks like:

    Installation view, “(Nothing but) Flowers” at Karma.

    Susan Jane Walp, Blueberries with Hollyhock Blossom, (2000). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Henni Alftan, Summer Shirt (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Installation view, “(Nothing but) Flowers” at Karma.

    Nicole Eisenman, Still Life with Takis (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Calvin Marcus, Begonia, (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Installation view, “(Nothing but) Flowers” at Karma.

    Peter Doig, Lemons (1989). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Woody De Othello, Space for Growth, (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Gertrude Abercrombie, White Cat and Red Carnations, (1941). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Installation view, “(Nothing but) Flowers” at Karma.

    Lubaina Himid, 2 Swallow II (2006). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Zenzaburo Kojima, Roses (1951). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Honor Titus, Jazmine Perfume, (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Jeanette Mundt, More Heroin – A Remarkable Time (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

    Installation view, “(Nothing but) Flowers” at Karma.

    Installation view, “(Nothing but) Flowers” at Karma.

    Installation view, “(Nothing but) Flowers” at Karma.

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    in Street Art

    Canyon Castator “A Clean Break” Print Release – August 19th

    Contemporary artist Canyon Castator will be bringing us his distinctive visual universe of symbolic, complex and dreamlike scenery which he has created. Carl Kostyál & StreetArtNews collaborated with Canyon to create out this limited edition print entitled “A Clean Break”. This artwork will be released this August 19, Wednesday, 5PM UK time.

    This screen print comes in an edition of 35 and measures 80 x 60 cm. It will be priced at 350$ and is signed and numbered by the artist.

    “When LA locked down with shelter in place orders, later leading to complete beach closures, I found myself constantly having surf dreams. Surfing is by design social distancing and the fact that the state made it illegal was absurd to me. I became more obsessed than ever with checking the live surf cams of completely empty beaches and waves. I started following all of new swell moving into the LA area, knowing that it would fall on vacant shores. ‘A Clean Break’ grew out of that obsession.”
    – Canyon Castator

    “A Clean Break” will be available on StreetArtNews store on August 19, 2020, Wednesday  5PM UK Time. (12PM NYC, 9AM LA, 2AM Melbourne, 12AM HK, 1AM Tokyo)
    Check out below for more images of the print.

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