GRAD PARTY

May 19th, 2017 - May 29th, 2017 @ Skylab Gallery

(all documentation courtesy of Tom Hoying)

HEISMAN

I become the commandant, and my friends, become my subjects. We perform a violent dance.

BETWEEN THE WORLD & ME

Individuals become silhouetted archetypes as the cycle continues, and continues, and continues. 

                                                                HEAVY

The perpetual guilt of the artist finds a parallel  in the plight of the black college athlete. Neither nigga gets too far. 

STATEMENT

A young black boy, seventeen, with that good hair, too short for the court, but no where near fast enough for the track walks onto the football field for the last game of his high school career. Before they started calling player’s names, the announcer asked all attendees to hold their applause, but you know how black folks do.
The arena swells, the arena swoons. Momma chants “That’s my baby,” Auntie no. 1, 2, and 3 join in, while Cool Uncle Willy, who just got his new iPhone takes a flurry of blurry pics.

Background noise.

You watch from down below, in a seat with your name on it, with a perfect view of the field, angled just enough to ignore the bench. It’s November, and early recruitment starts next month. You pick him out of the others, Ty’re with the good hair might be just what your team needs. After all, he needed you.

Right?

+ + + 

If the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house, then what can the master’s institution teach us? GRAD PARTY is a body of lens and installation based work that explores higher education’s value for, and place in the black community and how it impacts the black body’s continued mobility. The exhibition is dedicated to the black boys and girls that never made it to graduation day, and the mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunties, and uncles that made countless sacrifices for us to make it to ours.