UNBOUND

East Galleries, Zuckerman Museum of Art

Reception: Saturday, Jan. 25

Unbound brings together a multigenerational group of artists whose work takes an inventive and experimental approach to abstraction. Using Kobena Mercer’s definition of ‘discrepant abstraction’ — hybrid and partial, elusive and repetitive, obstinate and strange, including almost everything that does not neatly fit into the institutional narrative of abstract art as a monolithic quest for purity, Unbound explores the continued legacy of black artists who have utilized abstraction as a nonconformist visual language, and a lens through which social and political realities can be understood. Rooted in a formal visual language, their works consider the essential elements of abstract painting: color, form, gesture, line, and space, through unorthodox use of materials that break the confines of a rectangular canvas, and implode the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation. Moving seamlessly between mediums, these artists reference the vernacular and every day while engaging mid-century modernist art traditions. Collectively, their works remix a formal artistic language with material experimentation and technical improvisation. The works on view stretch, hang, tether, and dangle off the walls, breaking free from the bounds of figuration, and complicating the boundaries of painting itself. Unbound features the works of artists Sam Gilliam, Joe Overstreet, Eric N. Mack, Anthony Akinbola, Krista Clark, and Tariku Shiferaw. Nzinga Simmons, Curator Tina Dunkley Curatorial Fellow

CAUM/ZMA

Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday 12 p.m.-5 p.m. The museum will be closed when the campus is closed.