Artist Statement Cocreated during the first ever gathering of and for African trans activists in Cape Town, the work is a creative intervention for social justice, to mark the emergence of an African trans movement and honor the people from seven countries who chose to participate. After drawing them from life, I invited each […]
Cover Art
Lorna Simpson – Five Day Forecast (1988)
Artist Statement Feeling a strong need to reexamine and redefine photographic practice for contemporary relevance, I began producing work that engages the conceptual vocabulary of the time. With unidentified figures as a visual point of departure, I use the figure to examine the ways in which gender and culture shape the interactions, relationships and experiences […]
Wangechi Mutu – Eat Cake (2012)
Artist Statement In the video “Eat Cake,” a dance is enacted by another female character, whose place of origin is hard to determine from her dress code and general appearance. She materializes magically in a seat placed centrally in the video, in front of a large, dark cake that she proceeds to squat or genuflect […]
Mickalene Thomas – Sleep: Deux femmes noires (2012)
Artist Statement Emerging from a discourse that combines art historical, political, and pop-cultural references, and through the lens of black and female identity, I aim to blur the distinctions between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary. Indeed, the modes through which culture serves to shape perception across social, spatial, and ideological platforms […]
Renée Stout – Erzulie’s Arsenal (2013)
Artist Statement The world seems to be at a crossroads, and in my recent works I address the power structures within our society and how these structures affect our lives and the way we view ourselves and others, right down to the subtlest levels. As human beings, why do we relate to each other the […]
Andi Arnovitz – The Commerce of Infertility (2013)
Artist Statement: The piece was inspired by several events. Two movies, in Canada the movie Starbuck and in the United States the movie Delivery Man, both based on actual stories where sperm banks carelessly used the same sperm over and over, creating a situation where the same man fathered hundreds of children. A Montreal […]
Judith Scott – Untitled (2003-4)
Statement Using a shopping cart as a base, this sculpture is the largest and most complex in Scott’s body of work. The cart is used as a container for several smaller, unfinished sculptures, yet is presented as a larger baroque work on its own terms. The missing front wheels of the cart keep the […]
Devorah Sperber – After Picasso (Gertrude Stein) (2006)
Artist Statement After Picasso (Gertrude Stein) debuted in Sperber’s 2007 solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, Eye of the Artist: The Work of Devorah Sperber, which then traveled to Mass Moca, Boise Art Museum, Knoxville Museum of Art, and Kimball Art Center. Interested in the links between art, science, and technology through the ages, Sperber […]
Stephanie Rond – Precocious, Columbus, Ohio, 2012
Artist Statement As an antithesis to advertising, art can be a catalyst for the important conversations about life. I began making street art in 2007 to combat marketing schemes, which objectify women rather than show them as active participates in society. Placing art in the streets allows me to create a discussion about art […]
Peng Wei – Robe Series (2003-2012)
Artist Statement Robes or shoes, even underclothing, possess infinite varieties of types, styles, and colors, which can be mixed together in a multitude of ways. Besides being implicated in body politics or serving as symbols and declarations of identity, they are also capable of achieving a kind of state of mind. They add value to […]