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Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary Collection

From the Collection

October 01, 2015 – July 10, 2016
In this lush, vibrant scene, tall blades of grass and colorful vegetation cover the large surface of the image and create a decadent, fantastical environment. Glitter, fabric, and rhinestones suggest a world of beauty and festivity, while the lavish, curving plants allude to growth and life. A closer look, however, reveals a more somber subject hidden behind the dazzling artifice: along the shiny red path is the unconscious body of a prostrate black male.
Ebony G. Patterson, ...shortly after 8- beyond the bladez (detail), 2014. Mixed media on paper, 92 × 111 inches (233.7 × 281.9 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase with additional funds provided by Blake Byrne (T'57) and Marjorie and Michael Levine (T'84, P'15). Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois. © Ebony G. Patterson.

The show explores identity and its construction, challenging traditional representations of black subjects in art history and recasting them in a more central role, while honoring the black struggle worldwide. The result is as sightly as is it compelling.

The Brooklyn Rail

About

In celebration of the museum’s 10th anniversary, the Nasher Museum presented some of its most significant works from the contemporary collection. Reality of My Surroundings demonstrated the museum’s ongoing commitment to collecting contemporary work by global artists, with a focus on artists of African descent. The exhibition emphasized art’s unique role in effecting cultural change and highlighted works that address pressing social issues of our day, particularly race, gender, class, immigration and globalization. It included painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, video and installation. Many of the works were new acquisitions.

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  • A woman in a hat wipes away a tear. Icecream seems to have fallen on her shoulder. This work is both tender and disturbing. Like much of Davis’s work, this painting is a quiet reflection on the banality and sadness of daily life and is also underscored by a sense of light-heartedness and introspection.

    Noah Davis, Black Widow with Brothers Fighting, 2008. Oil on canvas, 52 x 60 inches (132.1 x 152.4 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19); 2009.4.1. © Noah Davis Estate. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • Female figure raises one arm, bent at the elbow.

    Marlene Dumas, The Woman of Algiers, 2001. Oil on canvas, 79 x 39 1/2 inches (200.7 x 100.3 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Partial and promised gift of Blake Byrne, T'57. © Marlene Dumas. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • Darío Escobar transforms everyday leisure objects into highly decorated luxury goods. He has altered skateboards, table tennis paddles, and, as seen here, surfboards using a metal-working technique that is more than 400 years old. The surfboard may be a common modern consumer object, but the artist has made it into a precious item that would seem at home in a royal palace or church from a past era. Escobar’s silver-embossed objects slip between categories of high art and kitsch, mass production and the hand-made. Escobar also comments on the history of his native Guatemala by using a metal-working technique that was developed in that country in the 1600s, a time when the country was under colonial rule. The artist comments on the relationship between commercial goods, luxury or religious objects, and how they relate to both past and present.

    Dario Escobar, Untitled (surfboard), 2001. Silver embossed on plastic, 75 1/4 x 19 x 7 1/2 inches (191.1 x 48.3 x 19.1 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase. © Dario Escobar. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • LaToya Ruby Frazier, Grandma Ruby and me, 2005 (printed 2013). Gelatin silver print mounted on museum board, edition AP 1/2, 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 61 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art. Museum purchase with funds provided by Marjorie (P’16, P’19, P’19) and Michael Levine (B.S.’84, P’16, P’19, P’19), 2013.6.2. © LaToya Ruby Frazier. Courtesy of the artist and Michel Rein, Paris, France / Brussels, Belgium.

    LaToya Ruby Frazier, Grandma Ruby and me, 2005 (printed 2013). Gelatin silver print mounted on museum board, edition AP 1/2, 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 61 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art. Museum purchase with funds provided by Marjorie (P’16, P’19, P’19) and Michael Levine (B.S.’84, P’16, P’19, P’19), 2013.6.2. © LaToya Ruby Frazier. Courtesy of the artist and Michel Rein, Paris, France / Brussels, Belgium.

  • This photograph is a portrait of a young woman who works as a henna tattoo artist and moves through the streets of Marrakesh on a motorbike. Her green and white djellabah, a traditional robe typically worn in Northern Africa, is custom-made by Hajjaj from the scarves of a local soccer club. The photograph’s frame is adorned with mass-produced Pepsi cans labeled in Arabic. These materials create vibrant patterns that reference Moroccan mosaics and fabrics, as well as modern commercial imagery recognized around the globe. Here, Hajjaj seeks to challenge our preconceived notions of the Arab world, and, more specifically, what it means to be a woman in this context.

    Hassan Hajjaj, Nisrin, 2010. Metallic Lambda print on 3mm white Dibond, painted wood, and aluminum cans; edition 3/7; 53 1/2 × 36 3/4 inches (135.9 × 93.4 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Museum purchase, 2014.1.1. Image courtesy of Taymour Grahne Gallery, New York, New York. © Hassan Hajjaj.

  • In Necklace CNN, Hirschhorn creates a monumental necklace in the style of hip-hop “bling” using cheap and common materials. By constructing art out of what many people would consider trash, Hirschhorn not only provides commentary on what art is and where its value lies, but he also addresses issues of quality in popular culture. Enlarging the necklace to mammoth proportions draws attention to its gaudiness. As Hirschhorn states, “Enlarging makes the thing empty.” The “CNN” on the necklace refers to the Cable News Network, with its twenty-four-hour news cycle that by necessity creates news when none exists, or repeatedly discusses the same topics until they are hollow words without meaning. Hirschhorn draws an analogy between ratings-conscious reporting and the posturing and social status implied by a piece of jewelry. He highlights the precarious nature of culture when influenced by a desire for the sensational.

    Thomas Hirschhorn, Necklace CNN, 2002. Cardboard, foil, plastic, gold wrapping paper, and tape; edition 3/50; 98 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 4 inches (250.2 x 80 x 10.2 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of the Rubell Family Collection in honor of Blake Byrne, T’57. © Thomas Hirschhorn. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • This is an important early painting in Kerry James Marshall’s career and features motifs that have come to define his larger body of work. It is one of the earliest examples of Marshall’s signature “invisible man,” portraits in which he uses slightly different shades of black to depict a human figure. Black bodies, in art history and in modern society, have often been left out or rendered invisible. Marshall comments on that exclusion here with his “black-on-black” self-portrait, seen hanging in the center of the wall. The vacuum directly below also implies the void within which African American artists sometimes find themselves working. Building on references as varied as Renaissance painting and folk art, Marshall often simplifies interior spaces. Here, the lack of shading and sharply slanting lines of the floorboards flatten the space, creating an intimate, close-up experience of a tidy home.

    Kerry James Marshall, Portrait of the Artist & a Vacuum, 1981. Acrylic on paper, 62 1/2 × 52 3/8 × 2 inches (158.8 × 133 × 5.1 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase with additional funds provided by Nailya Alexander; Maya and Anatol Bekkerman; Jeff Bliumis; Henry and Ludmila Elinson; Dr. Robert E. Falcone; Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Fromer; Alexandre Gertsman; Marilyn J. Holmes (T'72); INTART - International Foundation of Russian & Eastern-European Art, Inc.; Vladimir Kanevsky; Virginia Kinzey; Jacques Leviant; Innessa Levkova-Lamm; Dr. Boris Lipovsky; Mina E. Litinsky; Fran and Robert Malina; Teresa and Joseph Masarich; Marjorie Pfeffer; Anthony T. Podesta; Maya and Michael Polsky; Estate of Alek Rapoport; Vladimir Rapoport; Mrs. W. A. Y. Sargent in memory of Dr. Winston Sargent; Natalia Sokov; Amelie McAlister Upshur in 1938 in honor of Duke University's Centennial Celebration; Gibby and Buz Waitzkin; and Drs. Irene and Alex Valger, by exchange; © Kerry James Marshall. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • This is a portrait of the artist's late mother, Ethel McIver, who was a domestic worker in Greensboro, North Carolina before and during the civil rights movement. Based on a photograph the artist looked at daily, Ethel McIver's sympathetic eyes shown behind glasses connect not only with the viewer but also with her daughter, the painter. Simple in composition, the virtually blank background allows the artist's mother to become the sole focus of the painting, with no distractions to pull the viewer's eyes away from the sitter and no visual clues as to what she is thinking. Often dealing with themes such as class, race, and gender, McIver's portraiture also addresses the emotional complexities inherent in relationships with family, friends, and the self. Although Ethel McIver passed away in 2004, she continues to be a central focus in many of her daughter's paintings.

    Beverly McIver, Love Mom, 2011. Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase with funds provided by Marilyn M. Arthur. © Beverly McIver. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • This early work demonstrates McQueen’s improvisational and reductive approach to video making, using a hand-held camera, restricted lighting, and limited editing. It captures a close-up rehearsal by the experimental “trip-hop” musician and producer Tricky (Adrian Thaws) as he practices a song in his dimly lit studio. Recorded over four days in this small space, the video presents an intimate portrayal of a raw creative act. McQueen noted, “It’s a rare moment that you see an artist close up gearing himself up for a vocal performance in such a visual way. In effect, a moment not for camera is caught."

    Steve McQueen, Girls, Tricky (still), 2001. Video (color, sound), 14:47 minute loop, edition 1/4. Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of William and Ruth True. © Steve McQueen.

  • Zanele Muholi’s photographic work addresses issues related to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community in Africa, specifically challenging the idea held by some that to be homosexual is “un-African.” By compassionately depicting couples, Muholi hopes to show the error of this view. She creates photographs that illustrate the humanity and affection involved in LGBTI relationships, breaking down the walls that have been built in an attempt to define homosexuality as abnormal. Muholi approaches her art as a daring activist. Though focused on the positive aspects of homosexual life in Africa, her work also silently acknowledges the harassment, hate crimes, and pain that many have had to live with as members of a stigmatized community. Her photographs address sexuality and women’s bodies through frank and beautiful compositions.

    Zanele Muholi, Katlego Mashiloane and Nosipho Lavuta, Ext. 2, Lakeside, Johannesburg, 2007. Lambda print, edition 7/8, 34 x 34 inches (86.4 x 86.4 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of Blake Byrne, (T’57). © Zanele Muholi.

  • Collage on paper.

    Wangechi Mutu, Family Tree, 2012. One of 13 mixed-media collages on paper, 20 x 14 1/4 inches (50.8 x 36.2 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase with additional funds provided by Trent Carmichael (T’88, P’17), Blake Byrne (T’57), Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19), Stefanie and Douglas Kahn (P’11, P’13), and Christen and Derek Wilson (T’86, B’90, P’15). © Wangechi Mutu. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • Full portrait of male figure opening shirt to reveal Superman T-shirt, with a gold leaf background.

    Fahamu Pecou, Nunna My Heros: After Barkley Hendricks’ 'Icon for My Man Superman,' 1969, 2011. Acrylic, gold leaf, and oil stick on canvas; 63 x 49 1/2 inches (160 x 125.7 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19). © Fahamu Pecou. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • In this work, a pregnant woman sits on a boombox, her body adorned with timekeepers and talismans, as if ready and waiting to embark on a journey. The devices around her neck—including a circular clock and an African drum—relate to time, alluding to Pruitt’s fascination with time travel and a people’s ability to journey to a better place. On her right arm is an Akan Sankofa bird from Ghana, which symbolizes the need to look to the past to borrow what can help you make progress in the present and future.

    Robert Pruitt, Flux, 2011. Conté, charcoal, and gold leaf on hand-dyed paper; 50 x 38 inches (127 x 96.5 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase. © Robert Pruitt. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • This mixed-media collage is part of Dario Robleto’s ongoing project in which he imagines his own musical groups and creates their fictive LP album covers. The work presents three imaginary record labels (one label per panel) and their musical output for the year. Each record label offers a different and conflicting point of view: religious fundamentalism, scientific rationalism, and American folk medicine. Robleto has invented the musical groups and all the text and titles were created by the artist. The viewer is left to imagine the sounds and lyrics that might make up each album.

    Dario Robleto, Lamb of Man / Atom and Eve / Americana Materia Medica (detail), 2006-2007. Colored paper, cardboard, ribbon, foamcore, glue, willow, acid-free archival paper, and UV plexi; 60 x 185 x 8 inches (152.4 x 469.9 x 20.3 cm) overall. Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase with additional funds provided by Dr. Peter H. Klopfer, the children of Marilyn M. Segal in her honor, and the bequest of Viola Mitchell Fearnside, by exchange. © Dario Robleto. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • This photograph is from an immersive project in which Xaviera Simmons traveled across North Carolina, from coast to mountains, shooting photographs that reinterpret the cultural and physical landscape in both rural and urban environments. Simmons inserted herself into the settings as anonymous subjects, traveling musicians that appear in the landscape, excavated from the history of the location. Her fictional characters conjure the lore of the landscape and blur the lines of the imaginative and the real to explore the significance of place, music, and storytelling in the South.

    Xaviera Simmons, Session One: Around the Y from the project Thundersnow Road, North Carolina, 2010. Color photograph, edition 1/3, 40 1/8 x 50 x 1/8 inches (101.9 x 127 x 0.3 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase. © Xaviera Simmons.

  • Paul Anthony Smith, Choppy, 2014. Unique picotage on inkjet print, 40 × 50 inches (101.6 × 127 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase. © Paul Anthony Smith. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • Jeff Sonhouse explores black masculinity through fantastical portraits of masked, neatly dressed African American men. The mask hides the identity of his subject and undermines traditional portraiture, but reveals the eyes, nose and mouth, features most closely associated with racial stereotypes. Sonhouse’s confrontational figures are a spoof on stereotypes, and also have a spiritual presence, acting as both oracle and trickster. Sonhouse regularly uses combustible materials such as matches and charcoal, which speak to the fragility of representation and demonstrate the artist’s dry wit, suggesting that the entire composition could go, or has gone, up in flames. Piano wire and wood scraps extend well beyond the canvas, blurring the line between painting and sculpture. The swirling piano that breaks apart in the background acts as a metaphor for the parallels between musical and visual composition building. In these ways, Decompositioning functions as commentary on the act of painting itself.

    Jeff Sonhouse, Decompositioning, 2010. Mixed media on canvas, 82 x 76 1/4 inches (208.3 x 193.7 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Museum purchase, 2010.15.1. © Jeff Sonhouse.

  • For the Punctum Series, Hank Willis Thomas collected material from 20th-century German publications and archives. He selected details from photographs of the Holocaust and the collapse of the Berlin Wall, removing the imagery from its original context and shaping it into three-dimensions. In this sculpture, several sets of anonymous hands grab onto a string of barbed-wire fencing. The wire might call to mind concentration camps in Germany during World War II, or even the increasing incarceration of people of color in the United States. By presenting only a small element of a larger scene, Thomas allows viewers to provide their own narratives and to engage in the process of identity formation. The artist’s use of bronze, an ancient medium, lends physical and symbolic gravity to the subject while firmly placing contemporary social injustices within the history of art.

    Hank Willis Thomas, If the Leader Only Knew from the Punctum Series, 2014. Bronze, edition 2/3, 7 1/2 × 63 × 7 1/4 inches (19.1 × 160 × 18.4 cm). Promised gift of Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19). Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York. © Hank Willis Thomas.

  • In this photograph, Thomas has carefully constructed a period setting inspired by her childhood, from patterned clothes and a wood-paneled background to the model’s pose with legs slightly and suggestively open. Staring directly at the viewer and reminding us of popular Blaxploitation actresses like Pam Grier, Thomas's subject radiates sensuality and strength.

    Mickalene Thomas, Lovely Six Foota, 2007. Chromogenic print, edition 5/5, 56 5/16 x 67 3/8 inches (143 x 171.1 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of Christen and Derek Wilson (T'86, B'90, P'15). © Mickalene Thomas.

  • In this work, Ward uses basketball trading cards to draw a connection between sports, entertainment, and African American culture. The players have been blacked out, leaving only the balls on each card exposed, floating like celestial stars in the night sky. The word “bebop” embossed around the outer rim of the work refers to the fast tempo style of jazz made popular by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, which is improvisational like the game of basketball. “Bebop,” when read aloud, has an almost onomatopoeia-like association with a ball bouncing. The work’s round shape brings to mind a vinyl record, a protective shield, or even a divination tray, used in Yoruba cosmology in West Africa. These characteristics suggest a reading of music and sports as “religions” that help us make sense of our place in the world.

    Nari Ward, Album, 2011. Stencil ink, basketball trading cards, glue, and aluminum; 50 x 50 inches (127 x 127 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase with funds provided by Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19). © Nari Ward. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, New York and Hong Kong, China.

  • In this diptych, Carrie Mae Weems presents identical, but flipped, images of herself gazing into a mirror, her hand held up to stroke her hair. Weems’ position as both artist and subject connects directly to the process of identity formation, which involves not just looking at and projecting oneself, but also the experience of being looked at by others. In this way, the artist highlights the differences and effects of self-representation and imposed representations. The mirror images of the photograph are further extensions of the mirror the artist holds in her hand. Her dress made from quilts offers another instance of inversion, as quilts are often made from repurposed dresses. It also serves as a symbol of the accumulation of history, with cultures and heritages becoming layered, patched, and intertwined, informing our understanding of who we are and where we come from.

    Carrie Mae Weems, I Looked and Looked to See What so Terrified You from the Louisiana Project, 2003. Chromogenic prints, edition 4/5, 35 ¾ x 23 ¾ inches (90.8 × 60.3 cm) each. Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York. © Carrie Mae Weems.

  • Kehinde Wiley positions himself as a descendent in a long line of portraitists, including Thomas Gainsborough (1727 – 1788), Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780 – 1867), and Barkley L. Hendricks (on view nearby). He incorporates a range of art historical and current urban references, such as poses or clothing, that simultaneously place his painting within the traditional canon and a new contemporary context. In his portraits of everyday young African American men, such as this one, the artist presents heroic and powerful subjects historically excluded in art. Placing his sitters in strong yet often sensual poses, Wiley also challenges notions of masculinity, sexuality, and black identity.

    Kehinde Wiley, Ivelaw III (study), 2006. Pencil and oil on paper, 27 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches (69.9 x 54.6 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of Blake Byrne, T'57, in honor of Raymond D. Nasher. © Kehinde Wiley Studio. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

  • Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a British painter of Ghanaian descent whose trademark style of portraiture is shaped by European master painters like Édouard Manet (1832 – 1883) and Francisco Goya (1746 – 1828), but with a special focus on black subjects. Her figures are not portraits of real people, but products of her imagination that have an otherworldly quality. Like a fiction writer, she creates characters with complex personalities, but unlike an author she does not place them in a specific time or setting. They are frequently painted in nondescript clothing, in a dark palette on a monochromatic background. The artist describes her style as “one-shot painting,” meaning that she tries to start and finish each work on the same day.

    Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tambourine, 2010. Oil on canvas, 98 3/8 x 74 3/4 inches (249.9 x 189.9 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Museum purchase with funds provided by Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19). © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York and Corvi-Mora, London, United Kingdom.

  • Visitors enjoy a gallery talk led by Chief Curator Trevor Schoonmaker (back left) and artist Barkley L. Hendricks (back right), within Reality of My Surroundings. Photo by J Caldwell.

    Visitors enjoy a gallery talk led by Chief Curator Trevor Schoonmaker (back left) and artist Barkley L. Hendricks (back right), within Reality of My Surroundings. Photo by J Caldwell.

  • Artist Barkley L. Hendricks takes a photo of Chief Curator Trevor Schoonmaker in front of a painting by Noah Adams, within Reality of My Surroundings. Photo by J Caldwell.

    Artist Barkley L. Hendricks takes a photo of Chief Curator Trevor Schoonmaker in front of a painting by Noah Adams, within Reality of My Surroundings. Photo by J Caldwell.

The exhibition title, Reality of My Surroundings, comes from a 1991 album by the pioneering Los Angeles-based band Fishbone. Formed in 1979, the band was known for its sharp social commentary and eclectic style, fusing punk, funk, ska, soul, and hard-edge rock to make music that defied categorization. The 33 artists in this exhibition similarly challenge artistic conventions and provoke thought and dialogue on decisive contemporary themes. Their individual works span four decades and present a broad range of cultural perspectives. Through this exhibition, viewers were invited to consider the complexity of their surroundings and how realities may change over time.

Artists included Hurvin Anderson, Nick Cave, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Christian Boltanski, william cordova, Noah Davis, Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas, Dario Escobar, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Hassan Hajjaj, Barkley L. Hendricks, Thomas Hirschhorn, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Beverly McIver, Steve McQueen, Zanele Muholi, Wangechi Mutu, Ebony G. Patterson, Fahamu Pecou, Robert Pruitt, Dario Robleto, Xaviera Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Paul Anthony Smith, Jeff Sonhouse, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Barthélémy Toguo, Nari Ward, Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. The exhibition was organized by Trevor Schoonmaker, Chief Curator and Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Curator of Contemporary Art.

View Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary CollectionIn this photograph, Thomas has carefully constructed a period setting inspired by her childhood, from patterned clothes and a wood-paneled background to the model’s pose with legs slightly and suggestively open. Staring directly at the viewer and reminding us of popular Blaxploitation actresses like Pam Grier, Thomas's subject radiates sensuality and strength.
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Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary Collection

I find it distressing, there’s never no in-between / we either n****s or kings, we either bitches or queens —Mos Def

view article on The Brooklyn Rail | Published March 04, 2016

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