On November 3rd, Americans go to the polls to elect their new president – a decision that will be pivotal in humankind’s history as it will affect international relationships as well as the relation with our own planet. What will happen remains a mystery, but the Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, aims to explore how artists are tackling pressing themes like identity, climate change, Trump and city culture in these turbulent, polarising times. Until January 3rd, 2021, the exhibition This is America | Art USA Today will showcase the work of almost forty American artists whose work spans painting, photography, murals, installation and documentation.
The exhibition curator and Kunsthal KAdE director, Robbert Roos, set off on an American road trip from coast to coast and back again to talk with artists, gallery owners and curators in 2019. After coming back, he concluded that “Politically and socially, it’s a nation torn apart, with not only fierce opposition between Republicans and Democrats, but city and country seemingly occupying different worlds, racial tensions still undiminished, a Christian right that is actively seeking to reverse progressive legislation, and an apparently ever sharper divide between rich and poor.”
But as he rightfully continues, “Artists have always taken up positions in this public discourse.” To illustrate how different people capture the country’s zeitgeist through a myriad of points of view, he’s chosen both renowned and emerging artists including photographers Andres Serrano, Catherine Opie and Sheila Pee Bright; painters Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Cosmo Whyte and Lota Ezawa; multidisciplinary artists Travis Somerville, Alfredo Jaar and Jeffrey Gibson; and collectives For Freedoms and Guerrilla Girls.
But as he rightfully continues, “Artists have always taken up positions in this public discourse.” To illustrate how different people capture the country’s zeitgeist through a myriad of points of view, he’s chosen both renowned and emerging artists including photographers Andres Serrano, Catherine Opie and Sheila Pee Bright; painters Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Cosmo Whyte and Lota Ezawa; multidisciplinary artists Travis Somerville, Alfredo Jaar and Jeffrey Gibson; and collectives For Freedoms and Guerrilla Girls.
Hank Willis Thomas, 'A Suspension of Hostilities', 2019, 1969 Dodge Charger, 452 x 194,5 x 140 cm, Courtesy of the Artist and Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles
Theaster Gates, 'Where Black Power Lives', Gary, IN, For Freedoms’ 50 State Initiative, 2018. Photo: Madeleine Thomas
Michelangelo Lovelace, Glory, Columbus, Ohio, For Freedoms’ 50 State Initiative, 2018
LosDos, Sister Cities / Cuidades Hermanas; mural El Paso
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, In The White House (perfectly demonic dynamism), 2018. Courtesy of Nino Mier
Kota Ezawa, National Anthem (San Francisco 49ers), 2019. Courtesy the Artist
Dread Scott, Slave Rebellion Reenactment, performance still 6, 2019. Courtesy the Artist
Alfredo Jaar, A Logo for America, 1987/2014. Public intervention. Digital animation commissioned by The Public Art Fund for Spectacolor sign, Times Square, New York, April 1987. Courtesy Times Square Alliance, New York and the artist, New York
Guerrilla Girls, Wealth & Power, 2016. Courtesy the artist
Elliott Jamal Robbins, Snow White Clapping, 2018. Courtesy the Artist and Kai Matsumiya Gallery
Justin Brice Guariglia, We Are The Asteroid III, 2019. Courtesy the Artist