October 19, 2018 – January 13, 2019
Shifting Gaze: A Reconstruction of The Black & Hispanic Body in Contemporary Art presents a selection of works from Dr. Robert B. Feldman’s extensive collection of contemporary art. The artists gathered in the exhibition have all drawn upon art history, American history, and popular culture to create powerful works that, independently and collectively, present a broad range of concepts about identity, beauty, belonging, and religion, as well as work with deep gravitas around poignant issues of race, sexuality, violence, displacement, vulnerability, erasure, and visibility.
The title is evocative and an emblematic reference to art history and the critical social agency of our current times. Through various media, such as painting, sculpture, drawing, and collage, the Black and Hispanic body (physical and metaphoric) is implied or materializes with subtlety in some instances, beautifully unfolds in others, and in a few, is direct, dramatic, and heartbreaking. The symbolic framework of the Shifting Gaze and Reconstruction helps generate a larger dialogue between the works on view and the specificities of a diverse African & Hispanic Diaspora in our current physical, social, and political landscape, as revealed through each artist’s personal experience and distinctive aesthetics.
The Shifting Gaze, who is looking at who engages perception, seeing and objectification while Reconstruction represents a rebuild, new articulation, and possibly new constructs via a new voice – from the past and projected into a resonant now. The power of this collection, conceptually, formally, across contexts, sensibilities, and interests is the result of the extraordinary vision and passionate quest of the Winter Park collector Dr. Feldman who shares with us an unparalleled visual intellect fueled by his knowledge, curiosity, humanity, and keen eye.
Shifting Gaze: A Reconstruction of The Black & Hispanic Body in Contemporary Artfeatures works from the following artists:
Nina Chanel Abney
Farley Aguilar
Radcliffe Bailey
Yoan Capote
Nathaniel Donnett
Mark Thomas Gibson
Luis Gispert
Clotilde Jiménez
Jennie C. Jones
Samuel Levi Jones
Nate Lewis
Kyle Meyer
Lavar Munroe
Toyin Ojih Odutola
Ebony G. Patterson
Lamar Peterson
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz
Paul Henry Ramirez
Jamel Shabazz
Vaughn Spann
Shawn Theodore
Mickalene Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas
Carlos Vega
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Nate Young
Exhibition is curated by Shannon Fitzgerald, Executive Director, Mennello Museum of American Art.
Opening Reception
Join us for the opening reception!
Opening Reception
Friday, October 19, 2018
Members-only Preview
5:30–6:30 p.m.
Public Reception
6:30–8:30 pm
$10 for Non-Members | Free for Mennello Museum Members
Art Credit:
Ebony G. Patterson, Untitled I-beyond the bladez series, 2014, Mixed media on paper, 30 x 36 inches. Collection of Dr. Robert B. Feldman, Winter Park, FL. Courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.