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.
Firespitters
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Across her body of work, Smith foregrounds artists and thinkers who influence her practice, creating a communal exchange of ideas that reflects her discursive method of working. For her new series of drawings, Firespitters, Smith invited a group of poets to send her two photographs: one in which they hold their own books, and one in which they hold the book of another poet whose work is meaningful to them.
In the drawings, she illustrates both the book covers and the hands of the poets who selected them, reflecting the embodied labor of literary production. The authors’ selections also encapsulate the notion of mutuality that is at the crux of this exhibition. For example, poet Dionne Brand is the author of The Blue Clerk, which is the selection of another invited poet, Natalie Diaz.
Cauleen Smith, Dionne Holds Sylvia D. Hamilton, 2020
Cauleen Smith, Dionne Holds Sylvia D. Hamilton, 2020, from the ongoing series Firespitters. Gouache, graphite, and acrylic ink on paper, 12 × 9 in. (30.48 × 22.68 cm). Collection of the artist. Courtesy the artist; Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago; and Kate Werble Gallery, New York. Photograph by Matthew Sherman
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