Carlos Museum Summer Exhibits (Wednesdays)
Please check the venue or ticket sales site for the current pricing.
From the venue:
Picture Worlds: Greek, Maya, and Moche Pottery
By juxtaposing Greek, Maya, and Moche traditions, this exhibition invites conversation about the ways in which three unrelated cultures visualized their society, myths, and cosmos through their pottery. Who made and used these vessels? Which stories did they depict, and why? How did artists shape these accounts? Could images convey more than words? Each vessel displayed in this exhibition is a “picture world,” full of expressive possibility.
La Vaughn Belle: Come Ruin or Rapture
On September 19, 2024, Emory College, Emory University Libraries, the Carlos Museum, and the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum will host dECOlonial Feelin, an international symposium that raises awareness of lingering coloniality in the Virgin Islands and offers a space to engage with ecological thought and anticolonial practice. Led by Emory Professor of English and Creative Writing Tiphanie Yanique, this three-day symposium uses art, poetry, archives, philosophy, storytelling, anthropology, and spiritual practice led by the Virgin Islands Studies Collective as lenses through which to engage in this meaningful work. A major component of the symposium is the opening of two exhibitions featuring the work of the internationally acclaimed artist La Vaughn Belle.
Come Ruin or Rapture, opening in the Carlos Museum’s John Howett Works on Paper Gallery on September 19, includes work from two of Belle’s series, Storm (in the time of spatial and temporal collapse) and Storm (how to imagine the tropicalia as monumental) where she uses materials from her studio that were exposed to Hurricane Maria in 2017. These repurposed materials take on new forms and express the resilience of people of African descent in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the face of both natural disasters and colonial powers. The exhibition will be on view through December 8.
Exhibit
Docta
Ndaté Yalla Mbodj, Powerful African Queen and Daughter of Watalantay Nder Defeated Colonization in Senegal
February 5 - December 22, 2024
Senegalese artist and social activist Docta is a pioneer of African graffiti. For more than thirty-five years, he has used the medium to create powerful visual messages that give voice to the oppressed by drawing attention to social inequities, political abuses, and local histories. In this new mural commission, created especially for Emory, Docta depicts Ndaté Yalla Mbodj (c. 1810-1860), the last Lingeer (Queen) of Waalo, one of the four Jolof kingdoms in present-day Senegal. One of the most powerful rulers of Waalo, Ndaté Yalla fought fiercely against French colonization and is regarded as a hero of Senegalese history. Represented in her distinct roles as political arbiter, warrior general, and nurturing mother, she symbolizes female empowerment and Senegalese resistance to colonial oppression.
Nicholas Galanin
I Think it Goes Like This (Gold)
For Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast such as Galanin (Tlingít and Unangax̂), the totem pole is a ceremonial object used to celebrate events, depict stories, and document family lineage. In I Think It Goes Like This (Gold), a seemingly Indigenous-made totem pole is covered in gold leaf but lies dismantled on the ground. Contrary to the viewers’ original understanding of the object, this is not a cultural tool of memory-making and community. It is a carving by an Indonesian artist created to sell as a souvenir to tourists in Alaska. Through his intervention of destruction and reassembly to the original carving and application of gold leaf, Galanin creates dialogue about the economy of cultural appropriation while reclaiming the work as Indigenous art.
About the artist
Examining the complexities of contemporary Indigenous identity, culture, and representation, Nicholas Galanin works from his experience as a Tlingít and Unangax̂ artist. Embedding incisive observation and reflection into his oftentimes provocative work, he aims to redress the widespread misappropriation of Indigenous visual culture, the impact of colonialism, as well as collective amnesia. Galanin reclaims narrative and creative agency, while demonstrating contemporary Indigenous art as a continually evolving practice. As he describes: :My process of creation is a constant pursuit of freedom and vision for the present and future. I use my work to explore adaptation, resilience, survival, dream, memory, cultural resurgence, and connection and disconnection to the land.” Galanin unites both traditional and contemporary practices, creating a synthesis of elements in order to navigate “the politics of cultural representation.” Speaking through multiple visual, sonic, and tactile languages, his concepts determine his processes, which include sculpture, installation, photography, video, performance, and textile-based work. This contemporary practice builds upon an Indigenous artistic continuum while celebrating the culture and its people; Galanin contributes urgent criticality and vision through resonant and layered works.