Call and Response

I helped curate this exhibit in collaboration with Dr. Shawnya Harris at the Georgia Museum of Art as a complementary exhibition to the traveling show Carrie Mae Weems: The Usual Suspects. The exhibit of Weems's work asks questions about humanity, representation, and racial stereotypes in connection with the seemingly unresolvable cycles of police violence. In posing these questions, Weems sought a grace (inspired by Antigone) that might break us out of those cycles by bringing an openness that might recognize humanity. Call and Response is a response to this from the permanent collection at the Georgia Museum of Art seeking to show how those same themes of real and imagined lives, cycles of violence, and grace have appeared in other works from African American artists (such as Elizabeth Catlett, Sheila Pree Bright, Bob Thompson, and Michael Ray Charles). As part of this project, I helped Dr. Harris select works from the permanent collection to display, wrote and edited exhibition labels, and collaborated on gallery layout. It is on display with Carrie Mae Weems: The Usual Suspects from May 21 – August 7, 2022.

Images from the Exhibition