Art, Media and Material Witness: Contemporary Art from the Harn Museum Collection

Art, Media and Material Witness explores the relationships between artists and the historical, political and social challenges of their time. The exhibition proposes the artist as a material witness, defined as “a witness whose testimony is both relevant to the matter at issue and required in order to resolve the matter.” Questions that emerge include: What are the forms of artistic testimony? What is the significance of art in society’s discourse? Is art essential? What can art resolve? Can art change the way we think of or imagine our world?

Twenty five artists from Africa, Latin America and the United States engage with these important issues through a variety of media. The exhibition features several new acquisitions and important loans. Each featured work gives compelling testimony about the issues and conditions of its unique time and place in the world. Some challenge political circumstances through irony and humor and question the potential of utopian aspirations. Others explore the tension between nature and humanity and unsettle concepts of the “natural.” Lastly, the works question and reflect on historical representations of culture and identity.

Artists in the exhibition from Africa include El Anatsui, William Kentridge and Magdalene Odundo. American artists include Kehinde Wiley, Renée Cox, Cindy Sherman, Jason Middlebrook, Eric Fischl, Charles Arnoldi and Hiram Williams. Also special in this exhibition, the Harn showcases a growing collection of Latin American artists. They include Los Carpinteros, Carlos Garaicoa, Melanie Smith, Gabriel Orozco, Sergio Vega, Ana Mendieta, Rafael Jesús Soto, Wilfredo Lam and Roberto Matta, among others.

A Man Screaming Is Not a Dancing Bear will be showing as part of the exhibition through May 30. The film was created by artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla in New Orleans and the Missisippi delta after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The film cuts between a lush river landscape, an abandoned home and a young man drumming on the slats of Venetian blind in a poetic and compelling response to the flood.

The exhibition is made possible by the 150th Anniversary Cultural Plaza Endowment.