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Packaged Black: Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas is organized by Nina Bozicnik, Curator, and Shamim M. Momin, Director of Curatorial Affairs. Lead support is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This exhibition is also made possible by the generous support of Virginia and Bagley Wright. Media sponsorship generously provided by The Seattle Times.
Packaged Black: Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas October 2, 2021 – May 8, 2022
Packaged Black brings together the work of artists Derrick Adams (b. 1970, Baltimore, MD) and Barbara Earl Thomas (b. 1948, Seattle, WA) in a collaborative, multi-media installation developed from their shared dialogue about representation, Black identity, and practices of cultural resistance. This exhibition is a synthesis of a multi-year, intergenerational, and cross-country exchange between New York-based Adams and Seattle-based Thomas that began after the two artists exhibited work alongside each other in a group show at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2017. Adams’ work in Packaged Black engages the relationship between Black culture and commerce that is core to his practice, alongside the ways fashion and self-styling communicate identity. Among the works on view are large, striking collages and sculptures developed from his ongoing research into the life and legacy of influential African-American designer Patrick Kelly (1954–1990). Additional works in the exhibition include largerthan-life paintings from the Beauty World series, inspired by the creative expression of hair salons and wig designs that shape selfimage in the Black community. In complement, Thomas, who often works in printmaking, glass, drawing, and monumental sculptures made from intricately cut Tyvek and paper, translates contemporary realities and lived experience through the visual language of myth and archetypal
stories. For Packaged Black, Thomas draws upon the role of media and fairytales in shaping social expectations and her own conception of self. She created all new work for the exhibition, including an immersive installation conceived as a ‘transformation room’ and a series of cut-paper portraits of friends and colleagues that riff on the concept of the royal court. Adams and Thomas’s work intermingles across multiple galleries, creating an exhibition that forms an interconnected constellation of relationships that span time and place, and celebrates the creative imagination, adaptation, and resilience of Black communities. Sumptuous color, intricate pattern, and dynamic texture are cornerstones to the artists’ work and imbue the galleries with recurrent reminders of pleasure and joy. In a culminating gallery, the artists together conceived of a rotating lantern that casts images throughout the gallery and offers a transformative space for dreaming and otherworldly imagining.
DERRICK ADAMS
U.S., born 1970
Lamping 1 from LIVE and IN COLOR/ON, 2016 Acrylic paint on mixed and reclaimed wood, welded steel shade, synthetic wig, lamp parts Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Lamping 7 from LIVE and IN COLOR/ON, 2016 Acrylic paint on mixed and reclaimed wood, welded steel shade, synthetic wig, lamp parts Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
BARBARA EARL THOMAS
U.S., born 1948
Body Adorned in Color, 2021 Steel frame bodice with hand cut Tyvek and hand printed paper Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Body Adorned in Black and White, 2021 Steel frame bodice with hand cut Tyvek and hand printed paper Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
DERRICK ADAMS
U.S., born 1970
ON, 2016 Video, 3:38 min Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York Adams investigates the intersection of consumerism and the Black experience through the lens of popular media and culture. For his exhibition ON at Pioneer Works, New York in 2016, Adams directed a cohort of thirteen performers with the prompt, “Take the box and sell it.” The performers then improvised a script to hawk boxes with hackneyed marketing phrases—“More for Less” or “New and Improved”— displayed on them. The performers draw on the language and history of late-night infomercials, while the backdrop behind them depicts the SMPTE color bars on a vintage television screen, alluding to the concept of “on” as both a technical and performative motif. At the Henry, the edited video performance is projected onto and framed by a graphic of a larger-than-life television set that riffs on the outsized presence of media, advertising, and branding in cultural life, and its significant role in shaping a conception of self and identity.
Use your smartphone camera and scan the QR code below to access a transcript of the video
Barbara’s gratitude and thanks to: STUDIO ASSISTANTS AND CUTTERS Peggy Allen Jackson Chieko Phillips ASSISTANT CUTTERS Erin Dolan Debbie McGibbon Alicia Craven Anne Barker Stephanie Toliver Johnson DESIGNER/SEAMSTRESS Louise DiLenge BLACK SMITH Nick Rhinehart DESIGNER Stephen Rue PRINTER Sheila Coppola PHOTOGRAPHER Spike Mafford
BARBARA EARL THOMAS
U.S., born 1948
The String Man, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Divine, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Gentleman, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Sonorous, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Man in Waiting, 2020 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of Paul Conliffe
PACKAGED BLACK Dress up, dress down, dress to kill, dress to chill, dress for success, dress to challenge – it’s a vision, a meditation on the real and the ideal, our one chance to magnify or suppress the perceived imperfection of our bodies. I see fashion as armor, talisman, the magic-cloak, bigger than life. Our accessories are the amulets, the enchanted ornaments that set us apart and pull us together for the inevitable moment of exposure. We step onto the stage in the dress, suit, gown we’ve selected to protect, enhance, and cast a spell around us during the party or that first day of school where we may have to hold our ground, for just a moment.
CINDERELLA REDRESSED Cinderella is my gateway dream, the every-person’s story I’ve fashioned black. They are the courtiers and attendants who enter the transformation room where the slipper fits perfectly. The courtly stage is populated in our image. Here my men-in-waiting or ladies of the court hold the space. Whether it’s a party or the ball, in this tale all are primed to make a mark, dapper, elegant, dope. I imagine them as they step onto the dance floor, moving like silk, untouchable.
BARBARA EARL THOMAS
U.S., born 1948
Cinderella Redressed, 2021 Hand-cut Tyvek, paper cut with hand-printed color, voile fabric Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Delicious, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Beauty in Repose, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Royal Blue, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Sweet Prince, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
In her portraits, Thomas pursues a meticulous process to create exquisite images of cultural luminaries and individuals influential to her and her creative practice. After a residency at the Museum of Glass, Tacoma in 2014, Thomas began to translate her interest in the luminosity of glass to the material of paper. Her resulting technique involves layering papers hand-printed in a series of color gradients beneath intricately cut black, impressing her images with a sense of light in motion. As Thomas cuts away the monochromatic black paper, the figures reveal themselves in a world of flourishing vegetation and radiant color–joyful and distinctive. Thomas’s subjects are friends and colleagues, including Derrick Adams, whom she has cast as her royal court in a project that reconceptualizes the exclusionary structure of archetypal fairy tales.
Derrick Adams: Beauty World The Beauty World series exalts Black feminine rituals of beautification and centers the significant role hairstyling and wigwearing play in fashioning self-image within the Black community. These monumental portraits start from Adams’s photographs of mannequins displayed in the beauty shop storefronts around the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Adams paints atop his images of these otherwise generic mannequins, incorporating multiple tones and geometric forms that individuate the characters. “My interest in geometric composition began with looking at Benin heads, Kwele masks, Kota reliquary figures and so on,” says Adams. “The exaggerated forms, and the liberties that the creators took [in rendering these objects], are essential to a viewer’s understanding of the figure’s importance. I became invested in geometric shapes, their volume, and how one feels the weight of an image when something complex is broken down.” Adams’s portraits exude Black cosmopolitanism, conveying the individual and cultural potential of transformation through styling and camouflaging.
DERRICK ADAMS
U.S., born 1970
Style Variation 14 from Beauty World, 2019 Acrylic paint on digital inkjet photograph on watercolor paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Style Variation 15 from Beauty World, 2019 Acrylic paint on digital inkjet photograph on watercolor paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Style Variation 27 from Beauty World, 2019 Acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, on Artex Canvas in custom silver frame Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Style Variation 38 from Beauty World, 2021 Acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, on Artex Canvas in custom silver frame Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Style Variation Grid 10 from Beauty World, 2019 Acrylic paint on digital inkjet photograph on watercolor paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Style Variation Grid 3 from Beauty World, 2019 Acrylic paint on digital inkjet photograph on watercolor paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Derrick Adams: Patrick Kelly, The Journey/ Mood Board In the Patrick Kelly, The Journey/Mood Board series, Adams pays homage to Patrick Kelly (1954–1990), an illustrious Black designer who rose to prominence as the first American to be inducted into the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter, which governs the French ready-to-wear industry. Kelly’s styles included wearable sculptures with opulent embellishments and vivid, geometric prints that celebrate the beauty of Black women. Adams has studied the life and work of Kelly by engaging with archival materials— sketches, photographs, and correspondences— housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. Adams’s collages and sculptures incorporate Kelly’s vintage clothing patterns with geometric shapes, contours of the female body, buttons, and other adornments, both inspired by and evoking Kelly’s sartorial gestures The patchwork of patterned cloth pieces suggests a sense of movement, while also demonstrating Adams’s ongoing interests in deconstruction as a formal visual language. Adams’s response to Kelly’s expressive designs on the Paris runways of the 1980s commemorate the legacy of the designer and advance narratives affirming that Black American culture is American culture.
DERRICK ADAMS
U.S., born 1970
Prints Are In from Patrick Kelly, The Journey/Mood Board, 2017 Clothing patterns, acrylic, and fabric collage on paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Day Wear, Evening Wear from Patrick Kelly, The Journey/Mood Board, 2017 Clothing patterns, acrylic, fabric Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Runway 3 from Patrick Kelly, The Journey/ Mood Board, 2017 Clothing patterns, acrylic, and fabric collage on paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Runway 4 from Patrick Kelly, The Journey/ Mood Board, 2017 Clothing patterns, acrylic, and fabric collage on paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
BARBARA EARL THOMAS
U.S., born 1948
The Transformation Room, 2021 Hand-cut Tyvek, paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Beauty in the Vines, 2021 Paper cut with hand-printed color Courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
DERRICK ADAMS
U.S., born 1970
Changing Room 1, 2021 Mixed media collage on paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
Changing Room 2, 2021 Mixed media collage on paper Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
DERRICK ADAMS
U.S., born 1970 Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York
1. Pose 1, 2017 Acrylic paint, clothing patterns, fabric, paper, painted aluminum, oak, plexiglass
2. Pose 2, 2017 Acrylic paint, clothing patterns, fabric, paper, painted aluminum, oak, plexiglass
3. Pose 3, 2017 Acrylic paint, clothing patterns, fabric, paper, painted aluminum, oak, plexiglass
DERRICK ADAMS U.S., born 1970 BARBARA EARL THOMAS U.S., born 1948 Rotating Lantern, 2021 Cut paper images by artists inserted into lantern mechanism Courtesy of the artist, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, and Salon 94, New York
PLAYLIST Dionne Warwick, A House Is Not a Home, 1964 Peabo Bryson, Slow Dancin’, 1984 Anita Baker, Sweet Love, 1986 Prince, If I Was Your Girlfriend, 1987 Chaka Khan, I’m Every Woman, 2009 Backstreet, Billie Jean (Billie Jean Remix), 2003 Diana Ross, Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To), 1989
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