Fri 1/31 @ 6-9PM
MoCa Cleveland will be giving visitors a lot to mull over when it opens its next pair of shows, Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom, and Margaret Kilgallen: that’s where the beauty is, with a public reception on Fri 1/31. And with the facility now free to everyone, there’s no barrier to revisiting these shows again and again.
Chief curator Courtenay Finn, Cleveland Institute of Art alumna who came to moCa in late 2018 following a stint at the Aspen Art Museum and inherited the 2019 calendar, begins to put her personal stamp on the museum’s exhibitions with the show Margaret Kilgallen: that’s where the beauty is.
The prodigiously talented Kilgallen’s story is a sad one. Born in D.C. in 1967, she moved to San Francisco after her graduation from college in Colorado to earn her MFA at Stanford. She had her first exhibitions in the late ’90s before dying of breast cancer in 2001 at age 33 after opting out of chemotherapy because she was pregnant.
Following her death, her work as chosen for the 2002 Whitney Biennial; a major show of her work was mounted at Los Angeles’ REDCAT Gallery in 2005. The show opening at moCa is her first posthumous museum exhibition, originally created by Finn for the Aspen Art Museum. It draws work from shows she did prior to her death including works currently in various West Coast institutions, as well as previously unseen works from her estate.
Kilgallen, trained as a printmaker and with a strong interest in found signs and lettering, drew on such sources as contemporary graffiti and southwest American folk art, to create her works in a variety of media. She created a personal vocabulary influenced by the work of these unschooled artists, and purposely left rough edges to her work to give it a handmade quality that paid tribute to her influences.
“Kilgallen’s work brings front and center an aesthetic that reminds us we need not look only within the commercial mainstream or readily accessible narratives for inspiration and empowerment,” the show’s statement tells us. “Rather she celebrates the handmade, making heroes and heroines of those who live and work in the margins, and challenging traditional gender roles and hierarchies.”
The second show opening at moCa this week is Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom, organized by moCa’s Gund curatorial fellow La Tanya S. Autry,. It’s described as “the prologue of a longer conversation at moCa that explores how artists create liberatory futures,” with the next chapter, Imagine Otherwise, opening at moCa in February 2021.
Its ambitious goal is nothing less than the “exploration of Indigenous and Black liberation, decolonialism, Indigenous rights, and the importance of care and regeneration within communities.”
This group show, featuring video, photography, performance and sculpture, includes Tricia Hersey’s interactive installation “A Portal for Rest,” videos by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson produced with Cara Mumford and Amanda Strong, and work by Vaimoana Niumeitolu and Kyle Goen, and John Edmonds.
“Historically Indigenous and Black artists have been visionaries in our struggles and movements,” says Simpson whose 2018 article with Canadian poet/scholar Dionne Brand provided the inspiration and title for the show. “They have also affirmed our presence—created temporary spaces of joy and freedom, and enabled me to go on.”
“In the academy I think about things, and lecture about things, but in performance I can set up space together with an audience to share something different,” she continues. “I really liked creating these islands of freedom, little glimpses of freedom where we stand together and we get to feel, just for a second maybe, what freedom might be like, and to get that feeling into our bones.”
Autry will speak from 7-8pm at the opening reception and introduce Simpson, Niumeitolu, Hersey and Goen to visitors.
The reception is free; there’s a cash bar. MoCa members can preview the shows @ 4-6pm.
mocacleveland/winter-opening-night-party
Cleveland, OH 44106