Bodies of Knowledge
Co-Curated by Katie Pfohl and Allison K. YoungJune 28 - October 13, 2019
New Orleans Museum of Art
Manon Bellet, Wafaa Bilal, Garrett Bradley, Adriana Corral, Mahmoud Chouki, Zhang Huan, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, Edward Spots, Wilmer Wilson IV
Bodies of Knowledge brings together ten international contemporary artists to reflect on the role that language plays in archiving and asserting our cultural identities. Working with materials that range from books and silent film to ink, ashes and musical scores, artists Manon Bellet, Wafaa Bilal, Garrett Bradley, Adriana Corral, Mahmoud Chouki, Zhang Huan, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, Edward Spots and Wilmer Wilson IV propose language as a living and ever-evolving document that can counter more staid and static ways of representing our collective pasts. Organized around a series of immersive installation and film projects, Bodies of Knowledge asks us to consider how we might write more inclusive narratives, reshape public space, and account for bodies and histories that have, in large measure, been written out of them. Bringing a new global perspective to current conversations in New Orleans surrounding cultural preservation and historical memory, Bodies of Knowledge draws together artists working with many different systems of knowledge to illustrate how history can be erased, rewritten and asserted anew.
In Brèves Braises, Manon Bellet invites musicians to perform in front of an installation composed of the charred remains of burned paper, letting the paper—a material that typically carries written histories—slowly crumble to dust through the improvisational energy of musicians as they play in front of the piece. Wafaa Bilal’s interactive installation 168:01 commemorates the burning of Baghdad’s libraries during the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, inviting museum visitors to fill the shelves of an austere white library with donated books that will be shipped to the College of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad at the closing of the exhibition. Garrett Bradley’s immersive, multi-channel film America proposes that there was an entire body of silent films made by and for African American artists, audiences and filmmakers that has since been lost, and reimagines this lost archive through a corpus of new films. Mahmoud Chouki creates a new musical composition and series of site-specific performances for Bodies of Knowledge, titled Safar (Arabic for “to travel”), that will explore how music can speak across cultural divides to create new forms of dialogue between East and West. Adriana Corral’s Memento draws attention to the widespread disappearances of women and girls in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, through a site-specific installation in which the artist writes these women’s names on the museum’s walls with ashes obtained from burned legal documents. William Kentridge’s animated film Zeno Writing, created in the artist’s signature, stop-motion animation style, layers drawings and texts from Kentridge’s personal journal to reflect on the ongoing transformation of history, politics, and memory in the contemporary world. Zhang Huan’s seminal Family Tree documents a daylong performance wherein he covered his face with words, names, and stories drawn from his family history and Chinese folktales, resulting in the artist’s likeness becoming completely obscured across a series of nine large-scale photographic portraits. Shirin Neshat’s practice—represented here by a photograph from the artist’s Rapture series and a related film program in the museum’s auditorium—probes stereotypes of Islamic militancy and femininity through a series of works in which Farsi text is superimposed over the body. Edward Spots and Donna Crump choreograph and perform Black Magic, an original dance piece that features twelve young dancers from Dancing Grounds on the exhibiton’s opening day, Friday, June 28, at 5 pm. The performance will begin on the front steps of the museum and proceed into the Great Hall after the first of five acts. Wilmer Wilson IV’s installation features his 2012 video Black Mask—in which the artist slowly obscures his face with black Post-it notes—alongside a new series of artist books in which the artist documents a series of recent performances in cities around the world, including Rome, Philadelphia, London, Brussels, Barcelona, and now, for this exhibition, New Orleans.
Selected Press
John D’Addario for Nola.com
“It’s said history is written by the winners: those with the power and resources to create an “official” narrative. But a new show of contemporary art at the New Orleans Museum of Art challenges that assumption. Instead, “Bodies of Knowledge” takes the work of 11 international artists — ranging from photography and sculpture to video, film, and performance — to examine how the languages of art can create alternative histories of individuals and groups that have been erased, ignored, marginalized or otherwise neglected in an institutional context. It’s a cerebral concept for a summer group show, which usually tend to be easy on the brain. Credit NOMA curators Katie Pfohl and Allison Young for assembling a group of works engaging enough to enjoy without feeling like you’re attending a compulsory summer school session on cultural expression and identity politics.” Read More
Peter Plagens for the Wall Street Journal
“Perhaps the biggest challenge for major museums showing contemporary art today is finding a balance between aesthetics and didactics. Since that quite fungible concept we call social justice has become so prevalent in museum exhibitions of contemporary art, those favoring aesthetics first have reason to feel hopelessly passé. On the other hand, if a museum show leans too far toward sociopolitical content, much of the audience feels lectured, if not hectored. In a time when museums are trying to better represent racial and sexual diversity, putting together a group exhibition that’s both socially trenchant and visually arresting is a tall order. With “Bodies of Knowledge” (on view through Oct. 13), however, the New Orleans Museum of Art succeeds admirably.” Read More
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