Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Christine Miller, Rachel Elizabeth Jones, Sam Hiura, and Nia-Amina Minor pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
A Two Way Mirror Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists
Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington
October 21, 2023 to October 27, 2024
In A Two Way Mirror Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass, curator Jabari Owens-Bailey assembles a chorus of emerging and established Black glass artists. The exhibition showcases a range of captivating glass work. Fragile, yet hard, the works communicate powerful stories, stirring a physical response. According to Owens-Bailey, this may be the first exhibition of its kind.
Framed through W.E.B Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness, A Two Way Mirror confronts “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others,” going beyond aesthetic to offer works that foreground overlooked narratives and move outside the white gaze. The exhibition is contextualized in four sections—Perception, Spirit, Body, and Mind—and allows each theme to seamlessly pass to the next. From smaller delicate pieces like Barbara Earl Thomas’s Fire Breather Story Vessel II (2015) to bold sculptural installations like Ebony G. Patterson’s …and babies too… (2016–2018), each piece has a visceral impact. In Blue Black (2016) by Radcliffe Bailey, who passed away shortly after the exhibition opened, a heart cast in glass appears to float in the back of the gallery while indigo blue ink drips down a white wall. The translucent quality of this sculpture amplifies a spiritual-like presence demanding to be remembered. The series Glass Boys (2022) by Cheryl Derricote also activates history in a palpable way. Images of Black child glass blowers from the early 20th century are screen printed into glass panels in remembrance of the young artisans whose labor was exploited in the development of the industrial glass industry.
Double consciousness emerged as a new way to characterize the experience of Black folks and the psychological and political impact of colonization and slavery. Over 100 years later, the artworks in A Two Way Mirror grapple with and simultaneously refuse the constraints of these legacies.
Reflection: What does it mean to view yourself through the eyes of another? How do collective voices come together to resist alienation?
Jeremy G. Bell: Cosmic Tapestry
Art X Contemporary, Seattle, Washington
May 2 to June 22, 2024
Cosmic Tapestry is the second solo exhibition for Seattle-based artist Jeremy G. Bell at Art X Contemporary. Bell is using portraiture to unravel “the threads of personhood” and celebrating the power of a boundless cosmic energy. Through these works, figures appear both enveloped and unrestrained by space and time. In the supporting text we learn that Bell created these portraits in part to “challenge and reclaim the narrative of being a Black American.” Cosmic Tapestry allows blackness to unfurl and hurl the viewer through the universe, beyond binaries and earthly constraints.
Bell’s exploration of cosmic blackness is collective rather than individual as some of the figures are revisited across the series. In each work, the threads of the universe intertwine as Bell’s celestial entities appear to become one part of a whole. A closer look at some of the paintings reveals intricate details that look like the light of billions of suns and stars. In works like Ancestral Descender and I AM, I’m reminded of how long it takes for starlight to reach us; by the time we perceive it, we see stars not as they are but as they were. In Boundless, the deepness and fullness of a Black figure surrounded in brilliant light reminds me of the soul band Rotary Connection’s choral declaration: “I’m the Black Gold of the Sun.”
Instead of turning our eyes upwards, this exhibition suggests that we might look toward each other for reminders that we are part of a larger cosmic tapestry.
Reflection: How do you activate your cosmic imagination? Who are you boundless?