Revival: Digging into Yesterday, Planting Tomorrow
Reviving complex histories from a global spectrum of sources that are alternately inspiring and challenging, the artworks on view highlight how paths forward often lead back, and then through, summoning reframing, transformation, and transcendence. Listening to these echoes can spur a deeper understanding of where we have come from, where we are, and where we are going. As artist Isaac Julien says of his video installation, Lessons of the Hour, “these historical linkages to the present perhaps hold keys to the future.”
Floral motifs are integral to the form and function of works by Ruth Owens and Katrina Andry. 19th and 20thcentury floral patterning is interwoven into Owens’s figurative works, which often feature her family members in outdoor settings, dressed in stylized, often historical clothing. Explains the artist, “I use William Morris (1834- 1896) wallpaper designs, created for the nobility of Victorian Europe, as the background for portraits of people from the African diaspora. These designs provide a setting that speaks to the dominance of a culture that presents a beautiful, albeit stylized, sanitized, and controlled view of nature. The paintings show the Black figure situated in a visually engaging design of nature that belies a destructive dominance which is ever-present and exerting its influence as a standard of beauty, arbiter of social hierarchy, and possessor of power over people and land. I am interested in challenging this polemical attitude and point to the connectedness of cultures, and of humans and the environment.”
ABOUT 21c MUSEUM HOTELS 21c Museum Hotels, an award-winning hospitality company based in Louisville, Kentucky, is pushing the boundaries of both the museum and hotel worlds to create a new kind of travel experience. The company was founded as a single property by contemporary art collectors and preservationists Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, whose mission was to share innovative contemporary art with the public and participate in the revitalization of downtown Louisville. The couple opened the first 21c in 2006 along downtown’s West Main Street, rehabilitating a series of 19th century warehouses to create a union of genuine hospitality, thoughtful design, and culinary creativity—all anchored by a contemporary art museum. 21c is one of the largest contemporary art museums in the U.S., and North America’s only collecting museum dedicated solely to art of the 21st century. 21c presents a range of arts programming curated by Museum Director, Chief Curator Alice Gray Stites, including both solo and group exhibitions that reflect the global nature of art today, as well as sitespecific, commissioned installations, and a variety of cultural events. The organization collaborates on arts initiatives with artists and organizations worldwide, including Speed Art Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Creative Time, and others. Guests can enjoy 21c Museum Hotels in Louisville, Kentucky; Cincinnati, Ohio; Bentonville, Arkansas; Durham, North Carolina; Lexington, Kentucky; and St. Louis, Missouri.