Exhibitions (Fall 2023)
Begonia Labs
Crossroads: Lee Jaffe x Jean-Michel Basquiat
On view November 2, 2023–January 15, 2024
Artist conversation on November 2 at 5:30 pm. Opening reception on November 2 from 7 pm.
Begonia Labs, Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ)
This version of Crossroads is part of the 2022/2023 program, Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance, curated by Selene Wendt.
This exhibition features a selection of photographs taken by Lee Jaffe of his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat when they traveled abroad in 1983, as featured in the book Crossroads, published by Rizzoli in 2022. Their time spent together resulted in an archive of imagery that captured one of the art world’s true legends through an unfiltered and authentic lens. According to Jaffe, “For me, watching him [Jean] paint reminded me of the times I would sit and play harmonica while Bob Marley, with his acoustic guitar, would be writing songs that were eventually to become classics. With Jean and Bob, it seemed like they were channeling inspiration coming from an otherworldly place”.
This exhibition is Co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University’s Department of African American & Diasporic Studies.
About the Artist:
Lee Jaffe is an artist, photographer, filmmaker, musician, and producer. Jaffe has worked alongside and collaborated with many seminal artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Peter Tosh, Hélio Oiticica, Vito Acconci, Bob Marley, Nancy Spero, and others. Crossroads showcases his photographic documentation of his time with Jean-Michel Basquiat in New York and their travels around the world.
____________
Christopher Cozier in collaboration with LeXander Bryant, Home / Portal
On view September 21–October 22, 2023
Conversation with Cozer and Bryant, moderated by Selene Wendt on September 21 at 5:30 pm.
Begonia Labs, Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ)
This version of Home/Portal is part of the 2022/2023 program, Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance, curated by Selene Wendt.
On its most basic level, the red steps reference the red, sometimes green, steps of traditional homes, workers’ housing, or barracks, in places like the Caribbean. More than simply an object to look at, the work is activated by a series of actions that are intended to actively engage the public and create a moment of discourse. Picking up the thread from Cozier’s earlier work All That’s Left (2011), which explored the significance of empty lots in Port of Spain seen as contemporary archeological sites, Home/Portal involves a process of physical relocation that raises interesting questions about the difference between displacement and dispersal.
About the Artist:
Christopher Cozier is a mixed-media artist who lives and works in Trinidad. His drawings, videos, and installations investigate how Caribbean historical and contemporary experiences can inform our understanding of the wider world. He is co-founder and co-director of Alice Yard, an art collective based in Port of Spain that organizes art exhibitions, runs a residency program, and hosts performances, film screenings, dialogues, and lectures. He is a Prince Claus Award laureate (2013), a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grantee (2004), a previous Rauschenberg Foundation artist in-residence (2016), and most recently a recipient of the Jorge M. Pérez prize (2023).
Key group exhibitions include Caribbean Visions: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture (Wadsworth Atheneum, 1995), Infinite Island: Caribbean Contemporary Art (Brooklyn Museum, 2007), Afro Modern: Journeys Through the Black Atlantic (Tate Liverpool, 2010), Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago (Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, 2017), The Sea Is History (Historisk Museum, Oslo, 2019), Experiences of Oil (Stavanger Art Museum, 2022), Fragments of Epic Memory (Art Gallery of Ontario, 2021), Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s to Today (MCA Chicago, 2022), and Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica (Art Institute of Chicago, 2024). Cozier has also exhibited at the 5th and 7th Havana Biennials (1994/2000), was an artist in residence at the 10th Berlin Biennial (2018), exhibited in the 14th Sharjah Biennial (2019), the 11th Liverpool Biennial (2021), and Prospect 6 (2024). With Alice Yard, he participated in Documenta 15 (2022). Active as an art critic since the 1990s, he was a member of the editorial collective of Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism from 1998 to 2010 and was an editorial adviser to BOMB Magazine for their Americas issues in 2003, 2004, and 2005.
Curator of multiple exhibitions, Cozier has served as a curatorial adviser for SITE Santa Fe (2014) and as a member of the selection panels for About Change in Latin America in the Caribbean (World Bank, 2010) and the Kingston Biennial (2017). He was co-curator of Paramaribo Span: Contemporary Art in Suriname (2010) and, with Tatiana Flores, of Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions (Art Museum of the Americas, 2010). His work is in the collections of MCA Chicago, the Stavanger Art Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
LeXander Bryant (b. 1989) is a photographer and visual artist based in Nashville, Tennessee, focused on capturing the essence of Black Folks, particularly in the American South. His work centers around the documentation & design of the black experience through stories of triumph, resilience, and cultural identity. LeXander has been featured in both group and solo exhibitions since 2016 and continues to collaborate with other creatives locally and internationally.
Artist’s website: https://www.orgnzdvisuals.com/about
LeXander also recently founded Archive South — an American southern-based multidisciplinary studio that emphasizes the importance of artists as storytellers and cultural documentarians. It encourages artists to produce and share their ideas, creations, and reflections, recognizing that these contributions are valuable for capturing and archiving the essence of their experiences. Read more about the project here: www.archivesouth.com