Pope.L Exhibition Explores American Dream And Race At Drawing Center

(MENAFN- USA Art News) An extensive posthumous exhibition featuring works on paper by multidisciplinary artist Pope.L, titled“Certainly an Act: Works on Paper by Pope.L,” is currently on view at the Drawing Center in New York. The exhibition delves into the profound racial contradictions that underpin the American Dream.

Among the featured pieces is Pope.L's painting“Portrait a.k.a. The American Dream Is to Be Able to Think” (1989–90). This work, rendered in acrylic, oil pastel, marker, pencil, and tape, depicts a headless figure. The artwork is presented as an“absurd study in portraiture” and resonates thematically with Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel Invisible Man.

The exhibition space features two walls adorned with books. One wall displays an archive of 161 prior exhibition catalogues from the Drawing Center. The other wall commemorates“Certainly an Act” as the Center's 162nd exhibition and showcases texts from the Detroit-based Black Art Library. This collection includes works by authors such as Zora Neale Hurston and Faith Ringgold, with titles referencing Black art and African American mythology, signaling that“Blackness would sit at the very center of aesthetic consideration” in the exhibition. According to the exhibition wall text, for Pope.L,“drawing was never merely a medium but a mode of thinking about the world.”

Source: Hyperallergic

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