First, I would like to take you through the collection at the Jones Center. These works were a culmination of sculpture, timed work, photography and much more. Some sculptures from the exhibit are works by Kapwani Kiwanga that are both organic and inorganic. Dark and light. Alive and dormant. The first sculpture I saw by Kiwanga was a bouquet of living flowers, an organic piece, titled Flowers for Africa: Ivory Coast, 2015. I tried to imagine what these flowers looked like at the beginning of the exhibition, because by the time I visited the exhibit the flowers were dried memories of what would have been a fresh bouquet. The colors of the bouget are dull greens and browns, with deep plums in the dried petals. The arrangement of the bouquet mimics the shape of a crown, with the way the flower stems shoot out from leaves like points. This work asked me to question time and permanence, because this work will not look the same at any given point thorough its exhibition. I felt like this work was relevant to the theme, because the fact that the flowers are arranged show that they were touched by a human hand. Humans give importance and meanings to flowers as well. Some are used in wedding ceremonies, and some are used for funerals. With the title, Flowers for Africa, it implies that these are being gifted, and gifting is another important part of many cultures.
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Alongside this, Kiwanga has more “stable” sculptures, or sculptures that will not change within the time span of an exhibition. These works, Glow, 2019, are black and sturdy structures with pink lights attached to them. Some are curved, and others are L-shaped, but all of them are very simple shapes. They vary in size, some smaller than an average adult, and others are bigger. The pink lights on them are LED, and even though they do not actually get hot, the warm, pink color of the bulb makes the exhibit space they are in feel warm. These sculptures do not look like people, but they carry the warmth and feeling that people can have. These works allowed me to feel as though I was surrounded by people, even though at that moment I was alone in the gallery. While they do stand in for people, I immediately felt sort of guilty that I felt comforted by the sculptures, because they are meant, according to the wall card, to reflect a period of horrific racism against black people, when “lantern-laws” were in effect. There was no way of knowing that unless you read the card, because the works are incredibly abstracted, but when something carries such a heavy meaning, it feels humbling when I am completely wrong about it. Another thing I thought, after I visited the Laguna Gloria location, was how well these works would have functioned there. Kiwanga’s Flowers for Africa: Ivory Coast should
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