Mark Armijo McKnight: Decreation

Through Jan 5

White clouds against a black background, with one large cloud on the right and a smaller one on the left.

On view
Floor 1, Free Lobby Gallery

Open: Aug 24, 2024–Jan 5, 2025

Mark Armijo McKnight: Decreation features new and recent black-and-white photographs by Mark Armijo McKnight (b. 1984, Los Angeles, California; lives in New York, New York) and focuses on his ongoing body of work, “Decreation.” The concept, originated by the French philosopher, activist, and mystic Simone Weil (1909–1943), describes an intentional undoing of the self, a process Armijo McKnight explores in images of bodies and landscapes in intermediate states, such as anonymous nude figures engaged in erotic play amidst harsh environments. These photographs convey a sense of both ecstasy and affliction. A new 16mm film in the gallery plays a cacophonous symphony of gradually unwinding metronomes set within the dramatic geological formations of the Bisti Badlands/De-Na-Zin Wilderness in New Mexico. Two large limestone sculptures, which double as seating, suggest the forms of a pair of ancient sundials. As a whole, Decreation simultaneously evokes tumult and quietude, darkness and light, isolation and togetherness.

This exhibition is on view in the Lobby gallery, accessible to the public free of charge as part of the Whitney Museum’s enduring commitment to supporting and showcasing emerging artists’ most recent work.

Mark Armijo McKnight: Decreation is organized by Drew Sawyer, Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, with Nakai Falcón, Curatorial Assistant.

Generous support for Mark Armijo McKnight: Decreation is provided by the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation.

Additional support is provided by David and Carol Aronowitz, David Dechman and Michel Mercure, Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia, and Graham Steele.

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A black and white photograph of a decomposed animal carcass lies on dry, barren ground, with visible bones and remnants of fur.

The skeleton of a goat in a scorched field may suggest an acute sense of mortality, entropy, and ecological crisis; its title, Ez Ozel (or: Father Figure), the biblical origins of the term scapegoat, also points to bad-faith tactics in contemporary politics. Taken together, these photographs present a surreal otherworld that is at once ecstatic and violent, sacred and profane, abundant and desolate.

Events

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Thurs,
Oct 24

Mark Armijo McKnight in Conversation with Garth Greenwell

6:30 pm

Audio

As a queer, brown adolescent on the conservative periphery of Los Angeles, Mark Armijo McKnight grew up making and trading mixtapes by mail. Music is both an inspiration to the artist's practice and a regular supplemental component of his exhibitions. In 2020, he published a mixtape alongside his first monograph, Heaven is a Prison. His commission at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson was similarly accompanied by a mixtape, The Debris of an Unknown Celebration. For Decreation, Armijo McKnight produced a digital mixtape that includes music that either inspired or speaks to the existential themes present in his exhibition: death, landscape, light, dark, time, beauty, sun, and sky.