No More Blame is Left Unturned

The intentionality behind the work is clear, almost hypnotic, throughout the process. The subject matter is simple, the symbolism intricate, and the references to history and culture profound. The connotations of purposeful inclusion are explored more fully, and more deeply, in the afterlife, where the jumbled pieces come into their own as the themes of purpose and purpose-giver run parallel to the echoing statements of religious believers. Most of the images work to make sense of the landscape, to understand the relationships between different aspects of the fabric of the fabric. It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news; on the contrary, it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it.  In the process, the exhibition explores the history of American artistic expression and its connections to the civil rights movement. The focus on art's historical specificity begs the question: Was the exhibition practical? And, if so, how?

The answers to these vital questions will shape the exhibition, its themes of purpose, as well as the ways that it communicates these values. Concern for the physical and the agency it shows show in the ways that it puts its materials through rigorous and imaginative research. Finally, as these key findings become clearer than they might be, the exhibition draws on the creative processes of light industry and real estate to produce dialogically enriching experiences.  

Architecture is an experiment in spatial perception, driven by light, texture, and composition. Like a map, it reveals the identity of the place it represents. The artwork in this exhibition represents the territory—the virtual landscape—of existence. Opposed to this is the real world, on the other hand, the virtual is a space for discussion and reflection. The artwork in this exhibition questions the privileging of the physical over the other way around. The same goes for the structure, for it is not just about the content but also the way in which it is framed. What is the purpose of everything? What is the purpose of an object that cannot be reproduced? Architecture is a complex and ever-changing art-form, continually morphing and morphing through the course of the exhibition, continually generating diagrams and diagrams of what it means to be in a word, and continually having it repeat. It’s a process of reflection and experimentation; for the works in this exhibition are crafted around themes of site, memory, and memory for individuals, places, and events across the five boroughs. The exhibited materials include photographs and reports from real estate and real estate records, as well as newspaper articles and interviews with authors. The selected works include poetic and poignant accounts of returning to roots, encounters with work from non-Western origin, and of course, renewed hope and vibrancy.  Exploring modern architecture as it percolates through our communities, we look for patterns in the patterns we see in architecture: cheap, square, and simple. We see not just the things that make up a building, but also the things that actually make up its constituent elements. A studio apartment in Brooklyn, for example, consisted of a steel frame with jackdaws at the sides and sides, a barbecue grill at the top, and two roll-up seats behind which can be maneuvered the usual assortment of junk. Modern architecture as an artifact in the underworld of the present, one may clutch his or her gaze and contemplate the present moment, the ensuing questions and feelings imbued in its representation—from its decorative elements to its decorative motifs—in epic poetry, play, and film. The social fabric of this urban environments is often framed by the architecture as an example of how to expand and diversify knowledge bases, rather than as a choreographed departure point for critique. The exhibition curators sought to minimize the audience in order to allow for the possibility of unexpected occurings, and they hoped that would be the case either in the exhibition or through alternate means. The result is Endless Images, a display of photographs and videos from various architectural and construction projects that have appeared in the Encyclopædia of Modern Art. The series of works, which spans the 1970s and early 1980s, presents unexpected turns and turns of events that are hard to predict with certainty.

Artist Statement

Contrasting modern architecture with afrofuturism means eschewing the classical and academic training systems, the monolithic aesthetic underpinning the contemporary, the neoclassical, grandeurized aesthetic traditions of the twentieth century, and instead pursuing a more participatory and complex method of production. 

Afrofuturism privileges Black futures as a central tenet. The question remains of how to reimagine the relationship between community and technology while maintaining egalitarian dimensions to the art and design communities' eager responses.  They are not commodities drawn from factories or packaged goods sites in the blogosphere. They are people, of course, who comprise one of the most basic ingredients of a good breakfast—white bread, lightly baked, with a dash of sautéed prosciutto and prosciutto-style bacon and some diced tomatoes. But this hearty, hearty vegetable is also a major source of protein, which is one of the two main sources of red meat in the United States.

Understanding

Understanding is to question the power structures that determine what it means to be a super-geographical place and search for in-depth investigations into the foundations of human emotion through archival research and oral history. Through a unique fusion of memory and archival practice, Williams applies her analytical lens to Unbound Visual Arts (UVA) and interspersed with historical research, examines how the term “human” is being misconstrued and used against humans in the name of art.

We are all situated in the geographic proximity of another phenomenon or feeling or perception. This feeling, however, is distinct from that of being in a particular place, for example, a feeling of nostalgia for a certain piece of equipment is not a feeling of nostalgia for the past, nor is it a feeling of hatred for the present. It is in fact a kind of nostalgia for the past that is new and fresh and surprising and perhaps the most exciting thing that ever happened to anyone.  We are all now connected to the past and will always be connected to the future.

Explore the brain, develop theory, and invent strategies for long-term survival. It is both hopeful and challenging, it is healing and reconciliation, and it is preparing us for the unknown that is coming to be known as the digital age. The artist’s intention was to use photography to create sculptures that would be directly related to the structures, relationships, and characters.

The installation is inhabited by a variety of entities. One aspect of the architecture is digital, with panoramas of the surrounding space composited into a flat, three-dimensional image. The artist considers his work to be a representation of “a vast and rapidly evolving digital landscape”—interrelated in his work with a current technological landscape of overlaid text, image and video. This work is inspired by the ideas of “safe spaces” and “the future of judgment” with humor and determination and the idea of using the body to explore themes of responsibility, sexuality, and desire in her work.

Pitcher of Colored Light and The Suppliant

Pitcher of Colored Light and The Suppliant is a piece that provides access to information about the neighborhood and surrounding area that might not otherwise be available. The objective of the artist is to create a platform for the community to express their own recollections of the past, present and future through visual conversations. The result is a work that is both poignant and uplifting. It is also a time of transition for Davis and her partner, Sarah Laba. They have been empowered by the National Endowments program to create programs that help to counteract the present by providing educational programming and artist education. The programs provide social and environmental programming, including the Humble Bundle, which is one of the most popular purchases of the year. 

The present is not a future, it's suffering.

In Pitcher of Colored Light and The Suppliant, Williams is watching the life of a black writer spoiled by commercialism. The Suppliant creates a situation in which the fault lies with the writer, with the writer being forced to abandon his or her craft and become a drifter, maximizing the chances of his/her capture and release.Much of what makes her The Suppliant so frightening is his belief that, yes, he or she may have committed a crime, but the force of the conviction outweighed the damage.

It wasn't the fault of the writers, because they did it, she asserts. It was the fault of the people who took them. Millions of people lost their lives, and many of those were innocent people. Many of them were vicious. And many were wrong. I can watch the future and say, Yeah, that was your fault. But what you have done is made people think again. What you have done is to make people think again that white people are really black people. I will never, never be able to make you black. But what you have done is to make black people think again. And they will think again, because they've been deluded.

Sweetheart, sweetheart, our ancestors told us to make ourselves. We've been told to make ourselves. And now we have to make way for the next generation that says, You're doing it wrong. Sweetheart, our ancestors told us to make ourselves. We've been told to make ourselves. And now we have to make way for the next generation that says, You're doing it very slowly.

Slow?

A little bit slowly. A kilowatt hour? That's a lot of juice on a gallon of water? That's enough of a serving size? Now imagine you are the owner of that juice shop and you are demanding that that juice be reserved for that very reason. Slow?

Slow?

Describe what you have done to the juice. One gallon of juice.

A kilowatt hour?

A minute of that juice. Nine hundred and fifty-nine. Nine hundred and fifty-eight. Pounder. That's it. Pounders do not come from the bush.

Yes

Borne By Nature

Borne By Nature is an exhibition that explores the in-depth study of the underwater world of Biscuit reefs, featuring archival material, educational videos, and in-depth research. An Open Book style survey of this architecture-as-media moment, the artist encourages the viewer to contemplate their surroundings, to reflect on how they navigate the city, and to develop portfolios within the city in ways that are not only more humane and more meaningful, but also more beautiful and more meaningful each day. From the artist’s statement: “10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. PST Fridays and Sundays, Saturdays and Sundays. I love to get up early and go to the shops, but when I wake up at 3 p.m. I has to fight all night to get to the market.

Untitled (No. 2) No. 3)?

The artist’s fragmented images surface figures isolated from their original context, often standing in the way of another’s arrival. The artist’s voice is thick and clear, while her subjection leaves little doubt as to the structure of the image. It depicts the death of their mother, a local fair, and the structures that house them.

Her process mimics the process of translation, repurposing lost materials to create hybridized pieces that address our increasingly globalized, technology-mediated selves. The sculptures diverge from the photographer as she journeys the United States, attempting to transfix the sometimes-destructive image that has characterized her landscape photography for much of her life. Her approach to landscape is one of experimentation, fragmentary storytelling, and objectivity. 

Her own personal mythological figure in the Black diaspora, Martin Luther King, was a slave. I think that's a little more of a symbol than a methodology, but I think that's up to the individual artist.

The Waste Land On Earth

I think it’s about time a new pimp took over the world.

Pimp that shit to the next level.

ain’t nothing bad ever happen to people. You grow or you die. It is up to you. You can’t comment on it right now but if you care about any sport or person I’m in no position to make a thing. 

He has to find it, because the carvings on the outside of the skin are signifiers of death. 

The artist’s intention is to use the photographs to explore themes of responsibility, sexuality, and mortality, with figures draped in heavy armor. Her other work depicts the attempted assassination of a student government by a group of drug lords. Her process includes displacement, mass displacement, and mass automation. The buildings that she uses to create her works often collapse into small, mitigated-bathtub-like spaces. She also sets limits sometimes with her how and when to invite the invite. When in doubt, she will instigate a conversation with the person directing the play.

'The Black Lagoon Shipwreck Museum.’

‘The Black Lagoon Shipwreck Museum.’ clarifies our notions of underwater ecology, questions the power of industry in creating artificial reefs, and questions the role of science in the exploration and exploitation of the deep. It intensifies our sense of touch, sense of community and of shared experience. It’s a voyage into space’s past and future without a doubt of a voyage into time and perception. But this voyage is also a journey into our own personal time, into a voyage of questioning what it means to be "in time" for the social, political and economic changes that are necessary to bring about these changes. While some of the changes we are witnessing are quite subtle at times, they are important enough that they can serve as warning about the fragile nature of the present. 

". . . they come in many forms."- An act of Congress.

The artist’s process involves sewn together blocks of wood, joined together in seams to form a portraiture of the city, its people, and its landscapes. At the same time, the portraiture is not always in disarray. Occasionally, a street lamp shines a glimpse at a painting. At other times, the artist simply paints over the original canvas.  The process creates a series of blurred photographs, collages, fades, and ruminations, often at the forefront of her work. The resulting sculptures are portraits of iconic characters, often standing in as protagonists or inventives. Embroidered in cloth, the artist has painted them. They are now wearing the ephemeral, often “ephemeral” style. Embroidery is concerned with questions of re­connection, re­connection of dots, and meaning. 

Targeting an Endangered Endangered Species

Targeting an endangered endangered species is a proposition that will captivate the audience and will resonate across the globe. But, what will the lasting impact be? What will it take to create lasting memories of these works of art?  Using a practical strategy that utilizes the built environment and not the artistic, Tera Williams draws attention to subtle differences in the ways that we perceive reality. In a certain sense, we can call this what it is: a real-time system of information exchange that continually scans the world’s surface information in an objective and natural way to discover the patterns that emerge from the data set. Without this natural tendency to reduce reality to its basic elements, the patterns we find surprisingly common. Odds are, you have a fairly good idea of what the average person is thinking when she sees a familiar name, for example, and she will be quite happy to name it.

The epic journey of the artist's body takes her to exotic planets and tectonic plates, where life may exist on both seabirds and other less-venous habitats. Although her epic voyage is likely to resonate with viewers, Williams' journey of space is also likely to resonate with the scientists who study these waters. While her expedition to the surface of the oceans will likely bring tangible results, it will also likely be the last she goes into these waters alive. Her body will be left behind in these uncharted lands, and her name will appear hundreds of times in the water. “But what about the jellyfish? They were not invented back at MIT."

This work is inspired by the idea of using the minimalist, the stone viewportures an apocalyptic fictional Middle East, in which the use of violence is a frequent theme and by the Korakrita legend, which goes like this, "The sky is the limit and the moon is the tail." The symbol for all of us is love. And the legend also says, "The love that you have for me is gone," which I find repulsive. I don't like new things. I like seeing old things. What I'm after in this novel is the life that I was living when I started reading and the life that I lived after. You have to understand why I have to come back to saying that we're not simply being rational.  This work is inspired by the objects, the ideas of projection, and the representation of reality through objects and the idea of space, with reflections placed far enough in between the physical objects that it becomes difficult to to make flat planes. I wanted to paint over those reflections so that the reflection systems become world class, and I can see what the error is. Is there a way that I can live? 

The Shape of Zero

This painting, based on a real estate appraisal, hypothesizes that rent increases because people are more willing to accept less. The idea is that as a society, we begin to accept that this is going to be a really bad idea, but then, as we see it, it quickly becomes unaffordable. So, the question-and this is where our problem becomes very, very complicated-is, Does the representation of rent increase because people are more willing to accept less? And, of course, that's- It's a very poor situation, but it seems to have little to do with place. 

The artist’s process creates a series of interlocking surfaces that together create a complex tapestry and also includes juxtaposing the history of social and racial exclusions of traditional church seating. It includes scraping away the pages as well as papering over the text, making visible margins and creating textured surfaces that emphasize the text. The photographs on view here are a reflection of both the distance and the meticulousness with which she works to ram detritus into neat, rectangular pieces. The resulting grainy images that rise above the text are like depictions of medical waste; they're not representations of any of the artist’s own plants, but of a series of stapled together collection of plants that she has collected over the past twenty-five years. The sculptures are reflections of both the discarded and the functional—a common theme explored in the artist’s other work, Mundane Creatures, which depicted Williams removing insects from their homes with a saw. Mundane Creatures was conceived as a project between the artist and the Museum’s program for the disabled. 

Three Rooms

Three Rooms explores the interplay of color, form, and technology. It is a journey through architecture, gallery, and venue, from the Wright brothers creation to the still-evolving Bauhaus to contemporary artists from China, India, Japan, Morocco, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States. The exhibition is divided into three chapters, Each Room In The Hall Permanently represents a portion of the transformation that has occurred in the group’s home since the foundation of the museum in 1963. This includes providing new meaning to the word "home," changing the meaning of phrases, and even creating new physical and lived spaces. It embodies everything that we’ve learned in the career of building and demolition. It is both long and thin, it is a challenge to navigate between long histories, and it is both mysterious and gratifying to look back through.

The artist’s intention with this work is to explore the human-centric dynamics of human-centric architecture, specifically the world-centric architectural traditions of the 1600s and 1700s that were prevalent in today’s architectural and urbanist traditions. Human is part of a larger larger project, a discussion of the implications of racialized violence for the contemporary landscape.

Disclaimer: The content above was generated by OpenAI’s GPT-2. Two separate models were trained, one for curatorial statements and one for art descriptions. All headings and the exhibit name were generated by the curatorial model. Many were then used as prompts and fed to the system to generate the art descriptions. The descriptions were then cobbled together, changing only pronouns and the occasional name with <5 line edits for clarity. Model generated statements on the same prompt were conjoined to make the longer descriptions.

The art featured was all made by Tera Williams and is the result of four GAN models working collaboratively. Two of them were styleGANS that generated the original images and the other two were CycleGANS. The StyleGans generated Modern and Afrofuturistic architecture while the CycleGANS translated between landscape and modern architecture and modern architecture and afrofuturistic architecture, respectively.

While some of the information presented in this article may be true, none of the facts have been verified, none of the quotes are factual, and Martin Luther King Jr. was not a slave.