Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage at The Phillips
Exploring the kaleidoscopic power of "Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage" at The Phillips Collection.
Visitors entering the first-floor galleries of The Phillips Collection’s transporting exhibition Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage are greeted by greatness — a statuesque modern Black woman, standing proudly in sneakers, her head adorned in a golden crown composed of cut-out newspaper images and articles depicting Civil Rights-era student protests.
“Headdress 61,” by D.C.-born artist Helina Metaferia, offers a warm introduction to the sprawling show, organized by the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, and featuring 60 works by 49 African-American artists.
Spread across three floors in two buildings, the works — exploring identity, history, memory, sexuality — express each artist’s individual purpose in their approach to the art of collage.
Artist Tschabalala Self’s arresting “Sprewell” suggests, as the curators note, the multidimensionality of Black identity: “One individual being made from lots of different distinct elements,” as Self says.
That might easily describe much of the figurative work, including Yashua Klos’ evocative woodblock print on paper “Uncle Scott,” and Devan Shimoyama’s sexy, psychedelic “Red Haze,” a figure conceived as “both desirable and desirous,” according to the artist.
Shimoyama is one of several queer artists represented throughout the exhibition, and in a gallery dedicated to Gender Fluidity and Queer Spaces, where visitors will find Wardell Milan’s powerful “Pulse. That’s that Orlando moon, 808 club bass. That’s that keep dancing, that’s that never stop,” a tribute to the Orlando nightclub and the city’s queer community that genuinely pulses with life.
Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage is on display through Sept. 22 at The Phillips Collection, 1600 21 St. NW. Admission is $20, with discounts for seniors, students, and military, and free admission for members and children under 18. Visit www.phillipscollection.org.
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