맨해튼 아트앤디자인뮤지엄(Museum of Arts and Design)에서 공예예술가 소냐 클락(Sonya Clark, 1967- )의 회고전 'Sonya Clark: WE ARE EACH OTHER'(3/23-9/22)이 열리고 있다. 트리니다드 출신 정신과 의사 아버지와 자메이카 출신 간호사 어머니 사이에서 태어난 소냐 클락은 재단사였던 할머니, 가구 제작자였던 할아버지 등 공예가 가문에서 영향을 받았다. 소냐 클락은 엠허스트대에서 심리학과 졸업 후 시카고아트인스티튜트에서 심리학을 전공하며, 아티스트 닉 케이브(Nick Cave)와 함께 공부했다. 이후 디트로이트의 크랜브룩미술관에서 석사학위를 받은 후 엠허스트대의 교수로 재직 중이다. 소냐 클락은 1990년대 구슬 머리장식과 땋은 가발 시리즈로 정체성과 문화를 탐구해 찬사를 받았다. 이번 회고전은 디트로이트 크랜브룩미술관(Cranbrook Art Museum, 6/17-9/23, 2023), 아틀란타 하이미술관(High Museum of Art, 10/27, 2023-2/18, 2024)에서 이어지는 순회전이다. 

 

 

Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other

 

March 23–September 22, 2024

Museum of Arts and Design

 

This spring, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) will present Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other, highlighting thirty years of artmaking dedicated to the Black experience in America. On view from March 23–Sept. 22, 2024, the exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of the communal artmaking projects that form the heart of the artist’s pioneering creative practice. Accompanied by a selection of Clark’s photographs, prints, and sculpture, the exhibition will feature five of Clark’s large-scale, collaborative projects, including her barrier-breaking The Hair Craft Project (2014) and the ongoing performance initiated in 2015, Unraveling.

 

Working with a wide range of emotionally resonant materials and everyday objects—from cotton cloth and human hair to school desks and bricks—Clark encourages audiences to confront the country’s historical imbalances and racial injustices through material transformation. At the same time, Clark celebrates the complexities of the Black cultural experience. The uses of traditional craft materials, her applied knowledge of global craft techniques, and the communal collaborations that are integral to the integrity of her art are among the many ways Clark represents and honors the legacies of the African diaspora in Black life.

 

“We are delighted to welcome Sonya Clark back to MAD,” said Tim Rodgers, MAD’s Nanette L. Laitman Director. “Sonya has participated in many of our exhibitions, including Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, inaugurating the museum’s expansion in 2008, and the landmark exhibition, The Global Africa Project, in 2010. We are honored to now present Sonya’s first solo exhibition in New York City, showcasing the 30-year development of a collaborative creative practice that involves everyone in the critical work of addressing racial inequality in the United States.”

 

 

 

Exhibition highlights include: Solidarity Book Project (2020-present), a collaborative, community-based artwork and activist initiative that invites participants to declare their commitment to a more equitable world by turning social and racial justice-related books into sculptures; Monumental Cloth Series (2019), artworks and activations based on the historic repurposed dish towel used to signal a truce by Confederate forces at Appomattox in 1865; Unraveling (2015-present), an ongoing performance in which Clark works alongside individual gallery and museum visitors to unravel a Confederate battle flag thread by thread, symbolizing the collective work involved in dismantling racism in the U.S.; The Hair Craft Project (2014), a series of photographs and braided hair designs highlighting hair stylists’ ability to manipulate the hairs on Clark’s head and their undeniable textile artistry on canvases stitched with thread; and The Beaded Prayers Project (1998-ongoing), an installation comprised of thousands of small memorial pouches, created by community members across the globe, that are made using fabric from loved ones or donated material and contain a written commemoration, intention, wish, or prayer.

 

“MAD has long supported contemporary artists who have expanded craft’s creative boundaries and amplified its social significance,” said Elissa Auther, MAD’s Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Lasdon Chief Curator. “Entwined with Sonya Clark’s commitment to issues of history, race, and reconciliation is an abiding and deeply investigated interest in craft and its relationship to group identity. Clark considers craft ‘an embodied wisdom and a cultural technology.’ In her work, craft and community become a collective voice addressing one of the most pressing issues of our day—the question of equality and how to realize it.”

 

A series of public programs, to be announced, will extend the exhibition content, and will include a May 2 conversation between artist Sonya Clark and curator and scholar Lowery Stokes Sims. Part of MAD’s curatorial team from 2007–2015, Sims highlighted Clark’s work in exhibitions at the Museum and contributed to the current exhibition’s catalog.  

 

We are Each Other is co-organized by the Museum of Arts and Design, Cranbrook Art Museum near Detroit, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The exhibition made its debut at Cranbrook last summer (June 17–Sept. 24, 2023) before traveling to the High for a fall presentation (Oct. 27, 2023–Feb. 18, 2024) and concluding its national tour at MAD this spring (March 23–Sept. 22, 2024).

 

The 184-page exhibition catalog, co-published by the organizing institutions and Hirmer Publishers, is the first book to document and contextualize Clark’s large-scale, collaborative artworks. The publication includes contributions by leading scholars and educators Leslie King-Hammond, Lowery Stokes Sims, and Renée Ater; the exhibition’s curators MAD’s Elissa Auther, Cranbrook’s Laura Mott, and the High’s Monica Obniski; and features interviews with Clark by artists Nick Cave and Joyce J. Scott. The catalog will be available for purchase at The Store at MAD. 

 

EXHIBITION CREDITS

Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other is co-curated by Laura Mott, Chief Curator at Cranbrook Art Museum; Elissa Auther, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at The Museum of Art and Design; and Monica Obniski, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the High Museum.