hyphenative
Edouard Duval-Carrie
Anna & Elizabeth
Cannupa Hanska
Billy Colbert
Saya Woolfalk
Frohawk Two Feathers
September 7 - November 10, 2018
Curated by Elizabeth Kauffman & Tara Gladden
Familiar folk traditions offer comfort in the turbulent present, reminding us of a simpler time that provides an anchor to cultural identity. However, the great migrations that have marked the modern world have disrupted the connection of identity to place and have created many hyphenated and hybrid cultures. Featuring works by artists Edouard Duval-Carrié, Anna & Elizabeth, Umar Rashid, Billy Colbert, Cannupa Hanska Luger and Saya Woolfalk, this exhibition uses mythic histories, re-imagined folk traditions and cultural appropriation to embody what is particularly contemporary in our diasporic world.
It is easy to look backward with nostalgia, and to imagine that the world was a simpler, better place in times gone by. It is especially easy to do this if one is looking back from a position of power and privilege in the present. It is also easy to embrace certain folk traditions as cultural touch stones that connect us to our heritage and history, yet folklore is not pure and has rarely developed in isolation. So while we often look at it as the defining culture for a particular group, these practices often tell us more about a group’s connection to others than anything else. The complex histories of our world and the peoples that have and continue to inhabit it are at the heart of each artist’s work in this exhibition. The present is marked by hybridity in all forms. This mix can be confusing and disorienting, and it can complicate definitions of what is native or natural. Yet it also gives birth to new forms of beauty wonder, and in hindsight will encapsulate the folklore of the future.
About the Artists
Edouard Duval-Carrié is a Haitian-born American painter and sculptor currently residing in Miami. He holds degrees from Loyola College Montreal and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. His work has been exhibited in Europe and the Americas. Duval-Carrié has been awarded the South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual Art Fellowship and a Southern Arts Federation Visual Art Fellowship. His work is in the permanent collections of the Miami Art Museum, Musee des Art Africains et Oceaniens and Boca Raton Arts Museum, among others.
Anna & Elizabeth are an experimental folk music duo comprised of singer Elizabeth LaPrelle and multi-instrumentalist Anna Roberts-Gevalt. They collect songs through oral transmission and archival research and re-interpret them using multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural influences. Their latest work has been included in the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. As a duo they have participated in residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.
Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers) is a Los-Angeles based painter who presents a satirical and alternative retelling of the history of colonial war and domination in his work. He has received a California Visual Arts Fellowship in 2016 and has exhibited at the Hudson River Museum and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, CT, as well as galleries in the US and Europe. His works are in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Mount Holyoke Art Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Billy Colbert's works examine cognitive dissonance in popular culture and celebrate the unsung contributors to American culture. Colbert has had solo exhibitions at the African American Museum in Dallas and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in Wilmington. In 2000, Colbert was selected best in show at the Carroll Harris Simms National Black Art Biennial Competition. He received his MFA in Painting from the University of Delaware in 2000. He lives and works in Washington, D.C.
Cannupa Hanska Luger is a New Mexico-based, multi-disciplinary artist. He was raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Luger has exhibited internationally including venues such as the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Washington Project for the Arts, Art Mûr in Montreal, Museum of Northern Arizona, Orenda Gallery in Paris, Autry Museum of the American West, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, among others. Luger holds a BFA in studio arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts and was a 2016 Native Arts & Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellow.
Saya Woolfalk is a Japanese-born, New York-based artist who uses science fiction and fantasy to re-imagine the world in multiple dimensions. She has exhibited at PS1/MoMA, Deitch Projects, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, the Brooklyn Museum, Asian Art Museum, CA, MCA San Diego and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. She completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2006. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
To see more images of the exhibition please visit our flickr.
Public Events
Artist Talk with Edouard Duval-Carrié: Thursday, September 13, 6 pm, in Perdue Hall 156 on Salisbury University's Campus
Closing Reception: Thursday, November 8, 5-8pm featuring an in-gallery artist talk by exhibiting artist Cannupa Hanska and a special music performance by Laura Ortman.
Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) is a Brooklyn, NY composer, musician and artist. She produces solo albums, live performances and film/art soundtracks and frequently collaborates with artists in film, music, art, dance, multi-media, activitism and poetry, such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Martin Bisi, Caroline Monnet, Michelle Latimer and Martha Colburn. She plays violin, Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, pedal steel guitar, sings through a megaphone, and makes field recordings. Ortman’s notable performances includes venues at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen, MoMA P.S. 1, Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, SF MoMA, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, The Knitting Factory, CBGB’s, St. Marks Church, Dia Art Foundation, the Wave Farm, amongst countless other established and DIY venues in the US, Canada and Western Europe.
Come visit SU Art Galleries DOWNTOWN during the National Folk Festival September 7-9!
Folk Festival Gallery Hours:
Friday, September 7, 5-8pmSaturday September 8, 12-8pmSunday September 9, 12-6pm