Conrad Egyir, the inaugural MCLA Benedetti Teaching 艺术ist in Residence, culminates his residency with an exhibition that chronicles his journey through the liminal spaces 他体现了. He is both an 艺术ist and a Black artist, a Ghanaian and a naturalized American citizen and multiple other categories and identities which muddy the waters of living in America as both an immigrant and a person of color. 作为导航器 American, but also…
The scale of Egyir’s work is typically monumental, spanning as much as twenty-two 有几英尺长，高达七英尺高. 他的绘画故事参考了他所拥有的 witnessed, learned, and questioned as he continues his journey. In 旅行见闻讲演, there 没有开始，也不会有结束吗. 我们得到的是一个总结 entry that Egyir creates to combine portraits of those he sees, that look like him, and an intention to share their stories, as complex and diverse as his own, but very 不同的.
Trained in design and studio art, Egyir is revisiting what he knows to detail his 在北亚当斯居住期间的冒险经历. 他对尺度进行了大量试验 consider how it prohibits or liberates his mobility as a creative. 避免帆布 and paint, Egyir turned to paper, charcoal and pastels, and one of his previous loves, 雕塑. These works on paper present a sculptural version of his work. 参军 MCLA students and other community members to sit and model, the works on paper are not only lighter in weight and more varied in size, but more importantly, the paper allowed Egyir to create three-dimensional works that he wanted to form, using the two-dimensional works created during the residency. 把这些立体的东西放在基座上 paper forms, much like origami, fold time into a single moment for the viewer to experience, are built onto platforms to pay homage and memorialize the figures being portrayed.
Mirroring the complexity and diversity of his own experience, the works in the exhibition take on new forms to convey the same stories he has always sought to tell. 这些具体 works serve as landmarks. They are the recognizable places, spaces, objects, and people 在旅途中识别并引导你. 它们标明了你应该去的地方， where you have been, and for Egyir, how to travel back and forth. 埃及，和许多国家一样 of our artists-in-residence, go back and forth from North Adams to where they call 首页. For Egyir, in the United States, Detroit, Michigan is 首页 base, Ghana is 首页, 北亚当斯是一个临时的家. 他记录下他所走的每一步，并进行追踪 通过这项工作. As an artist, an explorer and recorder, he documents his travels and makes sure to note the highlights, and very specifically, the triumphs and celebrations, and not the defeats, trauma and sorrow that Black people experience in their daily 现实. However intimately personal and specific to Conrad these works may be,
旅行见闻讲演适合所有人. 这些图像是生活经历. Through this work, Egyir shares his belief that no one group of people has a monopoly on the experiences 悲伤，痛苦，快乐和爱. He uses universally recognizable codes, symbols and people and adds personal references to record and share his entries. 重量 of the physical journey and the impact of the mental one serves as a compass for Egyir.
It is fitting that Conrad Egyir was selected as the first Benedetti Teaching 艺术ist in Residence, not just because of the caliber of his work, but because of his constant desire to share what he has learned and to create a path for others. 现在，埃及做到了 created yet another guide for use along our own journey through the spaces in which 我们都被夹在中间.
如果二月永远不会结束会发生什么?
2月 is a digital collage series by Lorenzo Baker that expands and explores the definitions 黑人历史. Looking at history from a unique vantage point, the daily project offers viewers insight into what is commonly known as Black 历史 Month.
The push for celebrating Black 历史 Month began in the 1920s, with the work of Historian Carter G. Woodson, who proposed in 1926 that, "It is not so much a Negro 历史周就是历史周. We should emphasise not Negro 历史, but the 历史上的黑人. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hatred and religious prejudice". 被卡特的成就所激励. G Woodson, 2月 extends the argument that the achievements, moments, and record of Black people should be commemorated well 超过标准化的28/29天的长窗口.
Sourcing from the principles of Afrofuturism, which override western approaches to time, space, and meaning, 2月 began by addressing the question “what happens if February never ends?” Utilizing historical photographs, documents, illustrations, and images sourced from the internet, the artworks bend the viewers understanding 什么是值得历史记载的. As a daily meditation on Black 历史, each artwork blends and incorporates new or obscure information and data into depictions of well-known and unfamiliar icons within the black historical cosmos.
