To read my new exhibition review “The Phillips Collection Looks at Blackness in Contemporary American Collage” click here:

The Phillips Collection Looks at Blackness in Contemporary American Collage

The monumental group exhibition is turning heads and toppling assumptions about the medium of collage and the Black American experience that informs it.

By Stephen Wozniak

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage
July 6–September 22, 2024

The Phillips Collection
1600 21^st Street NW
Washington, DC 20009

EXCERPT

A few participants in the exhibition who now practice in major U.S. urban hubs come from as far as Haiti and Nigeria, bringing that history and experience with them in their work. One artist, Joiri Minaya, while born in New York City, was raised in the Dominican Republic—later returning to the U.S., where she now lives and works. Her sumptuous archival print on paper Woman-landscape (On Opacity) #4, from 2020, exudes a retro island vacation poster vibe. This photo collage consists of illustrations and images that add up to a fantasy figure stereotype—the fashion model smile, the rippling bounty of hair, the bikini-cradled bosom. But she is noticeably eyeless and has merged with the landscape. It’s as if we have no choice but to check out her sensuous form and the exoticized lands nearby, instead of getting to know her as a person, let alone understand her rich identity an islander. Of course, I can imagine the central figure letting those who ogle her prized body parts know that “my eyes are up here” even in their absence.

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