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The figures within the 21c Museum Hotels Dress Up, Speak Up: Regalia and Resistance demand visibility as they lay out personal, social and political issues. The exhibition greets viewers when they first walk in to the hotels lobby, with works displayed on multiple floors.
Each piece grapples with contemporary identity by using elements such as costuming, makeup, self-adornment and embellishment. By reaching backward into history, these figures often seem to reach forward in an act of reclamation to a past denied by the white gaze.
Alice Gray Stites, chief curator and museum director, explained during a recent tour that this exhibit contains several references to history revealing experiences held by varying cultures that have been dominated or altogether erased by the legacy of colonialism.
Kehinde Wiley’s larger-than-life “Morpheus” hangs above the 21c’s front desk. Wiley combines police mug shots, 18th and 19th century portraiture and the poses/gestures used by European Old Masters to influence his work. The man in “Morpheus” is found lounging by vibrant flowers in the likeness of the piece’s namesake. Of his work, Wiley said that this: “Ultimately, what I’m doing is jacking history. I’m emptying out the original. It’s almost a type of drag in a way.” Hailey BollingerSurreal and intricately designed, Nick Cave’s “Soundsuits” were a response to the Rodney King beatings in the 1990s. When looking at the suit — be it during a performance or in a gallery setting, in the case of 21c’s exhibit — one does so without bias toward the person who inhabits it. Hailey BollingerA detail shot of Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit” Hailey BollingerBisa Butler’s “Three Kings.” Colorful and vibrant, Butler uses the traditional form of a quilt to weave historical photographs into a new context. Hailey Bollinger“The Anthropophagic Effect, Helmet no.1” by Jeffery Gibson. Though fragile, the helmet acts both as a form of self expression and self protection. Hailey BollingerWorks by Jeffrey Gibson, a Choctaw-Cheerokee painter and sculptor Hailey Bollinger“Prism” by Jeffrey Gibson weaves together his Native American heritage and the influence of modern pop culture, specifically queer club culture. Hailey BollingerDetail shot of “Prisms” Hailey BollingerAthi-Patra Ruga’s “Proposed Model of François Benga Monument” is an homage to François “Féral” Benga, an early 20th-century queer icon and Senegalese dancer who became a much sought out model during the Harlem Renaissance. Though now mostly forgotten, Benga’s legacy resurfaces through Ruga’s ornate sculpture. Hailey BollingerMade up of glittering jewels and flowers, Ruga’s work rightly stands in 21c’s lobby window. Hailey BollingerThis untitled work is part of Ebony G. Patterson’s “72” series. The title comes from an incident that took place in Jamaica where a police raid on a community resulted in them killing 71 men and one woman. The crime for which they were killed was never solved. Hailey BollingerEbony G. Patterson’s “Lily, carnation, and rose budz (detail)” is part of a larger body of work in which Patterson explores the concept of a garden. Alice Gray Stites, chief curator and museum director, explained that the setting of a garden is “a place of both danger and beauty; fear and desire; where things are planted, where things are hidden; where we can discover both hope and terror.” Hailey BollingerA close-up of Patterson’s “Lily, carnation, and rose budz (detail)” Hailey BollingerFrom left to right: Jody Paulsen’s “Imaginary Best Friend,” Athi-Patra Ruga’s “The Coronation of Unongoloza” and Ruga’s “Miss Lolust Bringer” Hailey BollingerJody Paulsen’s “Delicate Boy” is made of colorful, contrasting felt, a material reminiscent of childhood. “(The artwork returns to that point of protected safe zone of child’s play in order to dive deep and address who we are and what are the forces that shape our identity and how we live it,” Stites says. Hailey Bollinger“Josephine Judas GOAT (it does not disturb me to accept that there are places where my identity is obscure to me, and the fact that it amazes you does not mean I relinquish it)” by Fireli Báez Hailey BollingerWorks included in 21c’s Dress Up, Speak Up exhibition Hailey BollingerFrom left: Fahamu Pecou’s “Breathe” and Kehinde Wiley’s “Support the Rural Population and Serve 500 Peasants” Hailey BollingerYinka Shonibare CBE’s “Dorian Gray” photographic suite references Oscar Wilde’s famed novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Also made into a film in 1945, Shonibare’s work features him performing as Gray, a 19th-century English dandy. Hailey BollingerVivek Vilasini’s “Last Supper” recreates Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th-century mural through a new lens Hailey BollingerFrom left: Stephanie Syjuco’s “Basket Woman” and “Cover-Up” — both are part of a larger series entitled “Cargo Cults.” To make these works, Syjuco bought mass-manufactured clothes (and later returned them) from American malls and styled them into looks associated with “ethnic” patterns and dress. Hailey BollingerIn these works, Beverly Mclver poses with a doll from her childhood. Representative of the past, her growth and, therefore, her identity, the doll serves as a kind of “protective talisman,” according to the artist’s statement. Hailey Bollinger“Brown Girl Memory” by Beverly Mclver Hailey BollingerEri Imamura’s “JP Girl A: It’s not the real me” Hailey BollingerClose up of “JP Girl A: It’s not the real me” Hailey BollingerBeverly Mclver’s “Hello” Hailey BollingerThis photo tapestry stretches along a wall of the 21c, backdropped by the kind of homey wallpaper one might find in their grandmother’s house. A piece within Ebony G. Patterson’s “Fambily Series,” it references Jamaican dancehall culture and raises larger questions surrounding what she calls “‘popular black’ culture.” Hailey Bollinger
