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Wafaa Bilal, Canto III, 2023

"Although Saddam’s golden space effigy was never completed, the people of Iraq have a second chance to celebrate their deposed leader. In Canto III, Saddam’s effigy crowned with the Dome of the Rock is reproduced in a 3’ ft bronze cast bust with a golden finish. Although regional politics provides a contextual framework to understanding this project, the public face of Canto III focuses on a light and humorous touch, navigating the border between the real and the sinister.

A series of smaller busts measuring 14” inches accompany the golden effigy. Veterans of the Iraq War fabricated the winterstone busts for minimum wage. The veterans engraved each piece with their signature, rank, and location of their tour of duty onto the busts. The results of their work are marked much higher than the cost of their labor in order to gently raise issues of art market labor and the struggles that veterans face on assimilating to civilian life on their return home from war.

The winterstone miniatures vary in function as well as size, featuring Canto III as a bookend and candlestick holder, arousing a sense of intimacy along with ownership.

Installation

For its rendition at The Armory Show in 2015, Canto III was installed with the large golden bust as the booth’s centerpiece, surrounded by winterstone miniatures on built-in shelves referencing a minimal, high-end luxury goods department store. A photographic render of the statue in upper orbit occupied a wall to the right of the golden bust, while candlestick holders arrayed against the center back wall. The pristine shopping experience hovers between art and commerce, tyranny and gaiety, looking to buy and looking to be bought in."

Andres Serrano, Piss Christ, 1987, Cibachrome print, 152.4 x 101.6 cm © Andres Serrano

Posters (2008/2017)

Aliza Shvarts, performance documentation (score, still, and official university statement) from Untitled [Senior Thesis] (2008), inkjet prints on paper, 18in x 24in

"This is the score and a video still from my senior thesis project at Yale University. In response to the project being censored by the university, I did not show any visual documentation of Untitled [Senior Thesis] for 10 years. It is visible now only through the lens of my other works. These posters are the first visual documentation from the project that I made public. They are the same size as those issued for college dorm rooms."

Sarah Lucas, Make Love, 2012, diptych: two chairs, tights, kapok, linen string, wire, 95.5 x 135 x 58 cm, Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, © Sarah Lucas

Mona Hatoum, Performance Still 1985–95, Tate, © Mona Hatoum

"This is a surprise party. Accept the invite. Select your preferred settings. Insert an earpiece and listen. You are the perfect host.

HOST is a party as performance where guests are invited to become human hosts for an AI that guides their interactions. Guests choose from a range of roles and identities, selecting earpieces from silver platters like hors d'oeuvres. Once inserted into their head, custom software listens in and generates personalized directions, shaping their conversations, actions, and affect. Humorously blurring the roles of guest, host, and machine, HOST invites reflection on our increasingly parasitic and parasocial relationship with tech."

Lauren Lee McCarthy, HOST, No date listed https://get-lauren.net/HOST

Claes Oldenburg. Pastry Case, I. 1961–62. Painted plaster sculptures on ceramic plates, metal platter, and cups in glass-and-metal case, 20 3/4 × 30 1/8 × 14 3/4″ (52.7 × 76.5 × 37.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. © 2012 Claes Oldenburg

Carmen Winant, Introduction to Consciousness Raising, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, 2021.

Carmen Winant, The Last Safe Abortion on show at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, 2025

#contemporary art #feminist art

Sinmi Stool, Designed by Norman Teague

"In the Yoruba language, Sinmi means to "relax" or to “chill”. The driving concept behind this flagship piece explores the casual and informal ways that we lean, perch, or otherwise sit on objects and surfaces that aren’t specifically designed for sitting.

The original prototype, designed in 2015 as a part of Norman’s graduate body of work, was acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019 as part of the Architecture & Design Gallery."

#contemporary art #design #chair #black artists

“I can’t get a handle on her….It’s like her sadness is such an overwhelming part of her. It’s a beautiful thing, but I can’t tell if that’s the cause of everything or if it’s a symptom of something deeper.”

Sentimental Value, 2025

Haha, Flood, 1992-1995. Photos by Laurie Palmer.

"Flood — a group of twenty to thirty people initially organized by Haha — built and maintained a hydroponic garden in a storefront on the north side of Chicago. Participants grew vegetables (kale, collards, mustard greens, swiss chard) and therapeutic herbs for people with HIV. For several years Flood provided bi-weekly meals, educational activities, meeting space, public events, and information on alternative therapies, HIV/AIDS services in Chicago, nutrition and horticulture, as well as a place to garden.

Although the storefront closed in 1995, Flood was instrumental as a future-directed seed project in several important ways. Flood participants volunteered at social service organizations in Rogers Park as well as in the Chicago metropolitan area. Flood hosted a series of round-table discussions between social service and community-integrated organizations. As a result, a collective effort emerged to build a comprehensive HIV/AIDS facility in Rogers Park. Opened in 1997, the facility contains a food pantry, an alternative high school, a community center, and administrative offices for four organizations. In addition, Flood worked in other communities (Dekalb, Illinois; Cedar Rapids, Iowa) to plant gardens, each of which developed the project relative to the local context." - http://www.hahahaha.org/projFlood.html

from "Dirt/Flood/Leaks" by Laurie Palmer, Part of With Love From Haha: Essays and Notes on a Collective Art Practice. Edited by Wendy Jacob, Laurie Palmer, and John Ploof. 1994.

To Prisoners

Gwendolyn Brooks

I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark. Dark gardening in the vertigo cold. in the hot paralysis. Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences. Where it is dry. Where it is dry. I call for you cultivation of victory Over long blows that you want to give and blows you are going to get.

Over what wants to crumble you down, to sicken you. I call for you cultivation of strength to heal and enhance in the non-cheering dark, in the many many mornings-after; in the chalk and choke.

"I am what I am not yet"

- Maxine Greene (1917–2014)

Joanna Piotrowska, A place to Return, 160x387 cm. Quilt of various textiles including reclaimed napkins, kitchen towels, tablecloth, woman’s garment.

#contemporary art

Joanna Piotrowska, Implicit Lives, installation view. Untitled, silver gelatin prints, wood veneer, brass.

#contemporary art #feminist art

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