BmoreArt

From one gallery to the next, Multiplicity introduces museumgoers to everything collage can be and invites them to dream beyond it. Porous thematic lines create an intimate sense of connectedness that can be felt throughout the exhibition’s staging. As one gallery flows into the other, works speak within and across sections.

For example, in Notions of Beauty and Power, Lorna Simpson’s “4 Walls” (2023) and Mickalene Thomas’ “Jet Blue #52” are placed side by side. Jet Magazine is the source material for both works, but each takes a different approach to the gaze. Thomas’s work celebrates and exalts the Black female form with abstracted and embellished nude portraits while Simpson uses cosmic imagery to obscure and protect the body from hyper-sexualization. 

Simultaneously, Simpson’s concealed bodies speak to the prints of Joiri Minaya found in Fragmentation and Reconstruction and Cultural Hybridity sections of the exhibition. In Manaya’s “Woman-landscape” (2020) a smiling maiden takes up most of the frame, her skin and bikini top are filled with a tropical landscape, including: the ocean, a beach, palm trees, and a clear blue sky.

Works from Minaya’s Divergences series (2020) follow a similar motif of concealment. These works address the commodification and sexualization of Caribbean women. In Digital Stitches, Paul Anthony Smith’s “The Tales of Tourism” (2022 – 2023), also speaks to the Caribbean’s idealized landscapes and exoticized beauties. Smith’s work pieces together photographs from his travels to create a single image. Tiny perforations cover the surface (Smith’s picotage technique) in the shape of beaming sun rays. 

These interwoven dialogs embody Multiplicity’s ethos, an exploration of the infinite expressed through a sameness. Mirroring the lived experience of Blackness, works can be related in thought but different in approach, united in medium while separated by technique. 

As I floated through the cozy galleries reading wall text and taking mental notes, a few things stood out as points for pause. The first was the descriptive wall text for Notions of Beauty and Power. Situated next to Gender Fluidity and Queer Spaces, it felt strange to read a description that reinforces the gender binary with a statement like “Devan Shimoyama, however, reminds us that beauty does not lie solely in the realm of girls and women.” 

The text goes on to say that Shimoyama’s work asserts “the value of the black male body which is often the target of profiling and violence” which is true, but it’s important to note that the Black male body is also highly eroticized for its perceived hyper-masculinity. Shimoyama’s figure exudes desirability through softness, a trait historically rejected within the Black community for its association with homosexuality. The dynamic between queer culture and Black life is central to Shimoyama’s work and is addressed elsewhere in the exhibition. The exclusion of it here left me puzzled. 

I also wondered why certain artists were featured more than once. Assuredly, enough people are working in collage for no repeats to be necessary, though, I imagine art world politics played into some of these decisions. Fortunately, these concerns have little impact on the exhibition’s overall message. 

Multiplicity is not a show about Black collage, it’s about Blackness in American collage which is entirely different. The former roots artistic practice in identity while the latter situates these artists within the broader context of collage and examines how their identity influences the work. As the opening text explains, this presentation is not an all-inclusive survey of the field. It’s a sample and an ongoing project. This concept of continuity is especially present at The Phillips. 

In addition to the works on view in Multiplicity, they’ve mounted an extension of the exhibition at The Arc. The satellite show, Home Coming/Home Going, features the work of Zsudayka Nzinga, an emerging artist and collagist working in DC. Traveling exhibitions offer slight variations from one location to the next but more often they can feel very cut and paste. Thoughtful outreach and dialogue within the local community increases accessibility and ultimately expands the conversations spurred by the exhibition. 

Keeping with the spirit of expansion, I hope future explorations of Blackness in collage can reclaim once overlooked or excluded works from the category. I’d also like to see contemporary collage alongside Romare Bearden and other early adopters. Bearden is invoked at the onset of the exhibition, but many are still unfamiliar with his work. New iterations of this project should also consider how Bearden and the featured artists have influenced those from other walks of life.

When we discuss Black artists, the conversations tend to be unilateral in influence like Picasso to Bearden, or become siloed like Bearden to other Black artists. Yet, inspiration flows in all directions. An expansiveness of a different kind, this discourse propels scholarship beyond the essentializing dialogues the exhibition combats. 

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage originated at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee and will be on view at The Phillips Collection until September 22, 2024. 

Header Image: Devan Shimoyama. Red Haze, 2021. Oil, colored pencil, sequins, glitter, jewelry, silk flowers, collage, Flashe, acrylic, and embellishments on canvas; 60 x 48 x 2 in. Arnold Family Collection, courtesy of Kavi Gupta. © Devan Shimoyama.