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This week's post:
DAHOMEY (dir. Mati Diop)
our book POOR ARTISTS 🍋 is out now in the UK!; and north america!

how to write good exhibition interpretation

GDLP

I just got a roll of film back and it included this picture of me posing in front of Joy Yamusangie’s painting Rodeo King at the Walker Art Gallery.

gab poses in a wide leg horse stance with hands on waist belt to match the big painting called Rodeo King next to her by Joy Yamusangie of a blocky rodeo scene painted head-on on unstretched canvas

They have an exhibition on at the moment called Conversations. It was curated by Sumuyya Khader in response to the discovery that the Walker had a collection of 13K artworks and only two of those were by Black women – and it’s on for a while and you should visit it. The highlight for me was the whimsy of Joy Yamusangie and, in particular, the interpretation alongside the Rodeo King painting:

The interpretation says ‘This painting reflects Yamusangie’s long held desire to ride a rodeo bull. They say: ‘I know I’d likely fall quickly, but I’d fall with pride in having so much faith in myself that I did it anyway, as something within me tells me l’d be great either way. The aspiration to be great is something that we all have in some form. It’s a way of people remembering us. The title refers to the artist’s wish to be remembered as someone who wasn’t afraid to try.’

Selfishly, I really hope to see more of this kind of energy in art. The clarity, the gushing. I think for a very long time, things have felt so impossibly bad, so immovable, so permanent and futureless, that I haven’t let myself think about the things I want. I’ve done what I have had to do. I’ve watched the people around me do the same. Together, we’ve spoken about the things we have to speak about. We’ve lived the lives we have to live. When I see art like Rodeo King, it just feels right – right that art can be a way to get what you want. To imagine desires, to materialise the image of them. I think it fits really well into the entire project of the Conversations exhibition, too. Conversations wants things to change. Conversation is the change the curator wants, right there, on the walls. I think it’s what artists want too, and audiences for that matter. Rodeo King is a good dare to start wanting. And maybe wanting leads to getting.