Within / Without
CURATED BY ESAÚ BETANCOURT
DECEMBER 7TH - DECEMBER 14TH, 2017
Banners, hanky codes, and hoodies: textiles tend to lead a double life as both functional objects and signifiers of cultural identity and political histories and affiliations. They are deployed by activists, countercultures, and subcultures as a codified language of visual cues, understood only by kin. They envelop black, brown, and queer bodies with a warmth that suggests “we know the same things.” They march in front of crowds and fly above our heads as an acknowledgement of that same collective knowing.
Within/Without, curated by Esaú Betancourt, unpacks the ways in which cultural identities and political actions rely on textiles to transmit information through a visual language of signs and symbols. Exhibiting artists Paige Reitz, Maria Luna, Tasha Abourezk, Holly Kranker and Evan Meduna create textile-based work with an emphasis on enacted or signaled identity, solidarity, and a shared aesthetic of resistance that raises the flag of social change on a unified front.
A performance during the exhibition’s opening December 8th, and a flag making workshop with Tasha Abourezk December 14th, will allow viewers to engage directly with artists and actively respond to the exhibition.
Installation Images
