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Color, Culture, Complexity
10am - 5pm
Color, Culture, Complexity featured the work of 18 national artists examining aspects of race. The show was co-curated by Ed Spriggs and Dan Talley. Spriggs was one of the first directors of the Studio Museum in Harlem and was the long-time Director of the Hammonds House Galleries in Atlanta. Talley was the former gallery director of Nexus Contemporary in Atlanta (now the Contemporary) and is currently the director of the Sharadin Art Gallery at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. The exhibition was dedicated to the memory of John Riddle.
Primarily of African and European decent, the artists worked in a variety of mediums and styles to grapple with the charged issues that have shaped racial discourse in this country, especially in the last half of the 20th century. The exhibition was intentionally eclectic, drawing its strength not from a single curatorial premise that is illustrated and reiterated by a number of artists, but by a broad cultural question that is answered by a sampling of artists through a wide range of responses. In a sense, the exhibition paralleled what might be the most important aspect of race relations in America: the power of the individual voice presenting a persuasive case. The show becomes a snapshot of the thinking and expressions of doubt and hope that were so pervasive at the beginning of this new century. The snapshot casted an eye back to some of the horrendous assumptions and injustices that have marked racial struggle during our country’s history and it looked forward with mixed expectations toward the prospect of improved understanding (most optimistically expressed by artists who desire to move beyond established categories and construct new paradigms).