I would be lying if I said the first few moments of my visit to Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions, KADIST San Francisco’s current exhibition, weren’t spent navigating mild confusion. Each artwork was labeled with a three-digit code composed of random letters and numbers, which corresponds to a larger label with titles and names of the works beneath their assigned code, which then includes a QR code that leads you to a .pdf with further information about each work on view. I have grown tired of these labyrinthic ways of accessing digital information, and my demeanor temporarily emulated a grandmother struggling with accessing a trendy restaurant’s menu on an iPhone.
Centering Judith Butler’s definition of “intertwinement” (introduced in her 2022 book What World Is This?: A Pandemic Phenomenology), Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions is an exhibition spanning two venues—KADIST in San Francisco and the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston. The intention is to not only examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its interrelated crises, but the radical acts of community building, mutual aid, and information sharing that came along with it.
As soon as you enter KADIST you are placed in their first gallery, greeted by an installation by Jeneen Frei Njootli, the base of which is a folding chair. Leaning against the back of the chair is a flat and circular ceremonial drum, its presence only hinted at beneath a bright blue tarp that is bound by black straps. Entitled casino chips fall out of you, broken hearts and baggies too (2021), this work reclaims Indigenous peoples’ right to visibility and privacy, and the tension between cultural liberation and restraint. The blue tarp acts as a literal and spiritual protective cover over the drum, a symbol of the heartbeat and therefore life itself.
There’s an intensity to this sculpture—the criss-crossing black straps harnessing the drum are reminiscent of a bondage scene, and the black metal chair placed in the center of the room reminded me of an interrogation. I thought of power, Black and brown grief, carceral culture—all themes of the COVID-19 pandemic that reveal themselves through this work and that the exhibition itself seeks to investigate.
In the second gallery, a closely cropped portrait of a Black figure by Antonio Obá lives by the entrance. The person is surrounded by a golden and pink halo, reminiscent of Catholic art depicting Christ or other saints. Their shoulders are facing the wall, but their head turns to look at the viewer with one striking blue eye. The figure’s all-knowing gaze is supposed to serve as a reminder to be vigilant against facism, misinformation, and general strife that plagues the world in modern times. To me, the stare feels prophetic—like they want to reveal a secret to you. A recurring theme in Obá’s practice is the construction of his personal identity as a Black person who reveals marginalized narratives through his work. Given that the depicted looks as though they wish to reveal a personal truth, this could be read as an allegorical representation of the unveiling of mass universal truth that came with the Black Lives Matter Movement’s regeneration in 2020—that Black people deserve peace, liberation, and affirmation, qualities of existence that existing power structures are designed to undermine.
A forty-eight minute video in the final gallery space entitled Hokšíkilowaŋpi (2020) by Kite and Corey Stover captures a phone conversation between two cousins as they learn a Lakota lullaby together over the phone. The camera focuses on a mahogany table, where an iPhone, recording device, and notepad sit. This recorded conversation between artists Kite and Corey Storer covers several interrelated topics–diaspora, Indigeneity, and the challenges of physical distance. For myself, it was also a reminder of life during strict lockdown, how I relied upon consistent phone and Facetime calls with loved ones for my sanity, and how my connection to identity, place, and culture became more precious and meaningful.
“Intertwinement,” the bedrock of this exhibition, is defined by Butler as a “collective effort to find or forge the best form of ‘interdependency’ as one that most clearly embodies the ideals of radical equality.” It is in this definition that I realized the irony of my initial frustration with the labeling style, and even in my approach to this review. This exhibition is meant to be conceived as a body, and yet I insisted on attempting to conceive each artwork individually. Perhaps my desire to untangle these works one by one and decipher them as disparate parts is evidence of a misconstruction that Butler and this exhibition seek to identify.
Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions
KADIST, San Francisco
Oct 4 2024 to Feb 15, 2025