Noel W Anderson explores the socially constructed formation of Black male identity through American media in Black Exhaustion, a monographic exhibition of his work on view at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center at BMCC, from September 6 through December 2, 2023.
Anderson’s process starts with found images, appropriated from various media outlets and archives, that he digitally manipulates through mirroring, inverting, cropping or other forms of distortion before its commercially reproduced as a cotton jacquard tapestry. The resulting textile is then altered by distressing, dying, staining, and physically picking apart thread by thread. In new works on view, Anderson repeatedly picks and brushes the surface, transforming it into a fur-like texture. The literal blurring of the images with the foundations on which they are formed parallels the way 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 our individuality. These works ask us to question our own relationship to issues of race and gender and the distorted depiction of Black masculinity in American culture.
Black Exhaustion will be on view concurrently with It Belongs in a Museum at JDJ, Tribeca. The two shows are essentially a single exhibition of works by Anderson that takes place in two places. 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.