Cauleen Smith: Mutualities
Feb 17, 2020–Jan 31, 2021
Cauleen Smith, still from Sojourner, 2018. Video, color, sound, 22:41 min. Courtesy the artist, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, and Kate Werble Gallery, New York
Cauleen Smith (b. 1967) draws on experimental film, non-Western cosmologies, poetry, and science fiction to create works that reflect on memory and Afro-diasporic histories. Mutualities, the artist’s first solo show in New York, presents two of Smith’s films, Sojourner and Pilgrim—each in a newly created installation environment—along with a new group of drawings collectively titled Firespitters.
The films unfold across several important sites in Black spiritual and cultural history, weaving together writings by women from different eras, including Shaker visionary Rebecca Cox Jackson, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the 1970s Black feminist organization Combahee River Collective, and experimental jazz composer and spiritual leader Alice Coltrane, whose music also forms the soundtrack for both films. Smith’s poetic use of the camera and light draws the viewer into a welcoming and accepting space that reveals the many ways in which invention and generosity can be resources for transformation and regeneration.
Cauleen Smith: Mutualities is organized by Chrissie Iles, Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator, with Clemence White, senior curatorial assistant.
Cauleen Smith: Mutualities is part of the Whitney’s emerging artists program, sponsored by
Generous support is provided by The Rosenkranz Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Artists Council.
Pilgrim
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This film traces the artist’s pilgrimage to three sites: Alice Coltrane’s Turiyasangitananda Vedantic Center in Agoura, California; Watts Towers in Los Angeles; and the Black spiritual activist Rebecca Cox Jackson’s Watervliet Shaker community in upstate New York. In vivid evocations of each place’s creative atmosphere, Smith’s camera slowly explores the ashram’s interior and Coltrane’s musical instruments, while her use of 16mm film—with its soft grain and subtle color palette—infuses Watts Towers and the Shaker garden’s flowers with an emotional intimacy.
Jackson’s advocacy of racial and gender equality, her fight against the patriarchy of organized religion, and her awareness of the African roots of her faith resonate with Coltrane’s own hybrid, transnational spiritual and musical language. Both women’s challenges to accepted authority are, like the enduring independent spirit of Watts Towers, grounded in a sense of place, community, and generosity that are also hallmarks of Smith’s own transformative work.
Installation photography
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Installation view of Cauleen Smith: Mutualities (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 17–May 17, 2020). From left to right: Alexis Holds Audre Lorde, 2020; Natalie Diaz, 2020; Natalie Holds Dionne Brand, 2020; Gregg Bordowitz, 2020; Gregg Holds Robert, 2020; Latasha Gave Me African Sleeping Sickness, 2020; Krista Franklin, 2020; Krista Holds Terrance, 2020; Dionne Holds Sylvia D. Hamilton, 2020; Dionne Brand, 2020. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
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Installation view of Cauleen Smith: Mutualities (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 17–May 17, 2020). From left to right: Pilgrim, 2017; Halimufack (chasing after Zora), 2019. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
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Installation view of Cauleen Smith: Mutualities (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 17–May 17, 2020). From left to right: Space Station: Charmed and Strange, 2019; Sojourner, 2018. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
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Installation view of Cauleen Smith: Mutualities (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 17–May 17, 2020). Pilgrim, 2017. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
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Installation view of Cauleen Smith: Mutualities (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 17–May 17, 2020). Pilgrim, 2017. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
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In the News
"[A] visual feat" —The Art Newspaper
"Smith merges utopian futurism with wistful revision." —The New Yorker
"In many ways Cauleen Smith is the dynamic, conceptual artist one would expect. Beyond expectations, however, is her bold—and especially collaborative—creative voice." —CR Fashion Book