Shirley Fiterman Art Center Presents “Black Exhaustion,” an Exhibition by Noel W Anderson

The Shirley Fiterman Art Center (SFAC) at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) presents an exhibition, “Black Exhaustion,” featuring the work of Noel W Anderson from September 6 through December 2.

“Black Exhaustion” explores Black male identity through American media. Anderson’s process starts with found images, appropriated from various archives and media outlets, that he digitally manipulates through mirroring, inverting, cropping or other forms of distortion before it is reproduced as a cotton jacquard tapestry.

The resulting textile is then altered by distressing, dying, staining and physically picking it apart thread by thread. In the new works on view, Anderson repeatedly picks and brushes the surface, transforming it into a fur-like texture.

“The show will include woven images representing the abundance of labor (extra-ordinary) required to attain Black Excellence. As both white and Black communities hold-up Black entertainers — athletes, singers, actors — as paradigms/paragons of achievement, the works in the show will reflect these agents as appropriate subjects with whom to explore the requirements of racialized success,” says Anderson. “In this framework, I will look to images of Black performance and performativity in arenas in which black actors are most visible. The exhibition looks at black performance/performativity in fields where the presence of black actors is hyper visible, and “excessive labor” is ontologically/irreducibly central to their status as successful, valuable and superior.”

“The literal blurring of the images with the foundations on which they are formed parallels the ways in which representations of Black male figures are warped in contemporary culture and media. The formal shift from clarity into abstraction in Anderson’s work conceptually mirrors the process by which stereotypes and archetypes overtake individuality,” says Lisa Panzera, Director of the SFAC. “These works ask us to question our own relationships to issues of race and gender and to the distorted depiction of Black masculinity in American culture.”

Noel W Anderson was born in Louisville, Kentucky and received an MFA from Indiana University in Printmaking, and an MFA from Yale University in Sculpture. He is the Area Head of Printmaking in NYU’s Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions and has been awarded the NYFA artist fellowship grant, the prestigious Jerome Camargo Prize and the paper-making residency at Dieu Donné. Mr. Anderson’s most recent institutional solo show, “Erasure’s Edge,” was on view at KMAC Contemporary Art Museum in Louisville. He also exhibited in the 12th Berlin Biennale. His work is included in the permanent collections of the International Center of Photography in New York City, The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

“Black Exhaustion” will be on view concurrently with “It Belongs in a Museum” at JDJ, Tribeca. “Linked conceptually and thematically, together they expand on Anderson’s exploration of the history and creation of images, especially as they relate to the construction of Black identity, Black labor and performativity, and issues of racialized success,” says Director Panzera.

The SFAC is located in Fiterman Hall at 81 Barclay Street in lower Manhattan. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 12 to 5 p.m., and by appointment; please email shirleyfitermanartcenter@bmcc.cuny.edu or call (212) 776-5631.