Carrie Mae Weems, Robert Gerhardt, and Roberto Lugo
Fairfield University Art Museum • Fairfield, CT • fairfield.edu/museum/ • September 18–December 18, 2021
At Fairfield University Art Museum, the fall kicks off with exhibitions as timely as the changing leaves around us. The museum will feature The Usual Suspects by Carrie Mae Weems, Mic Check by Robert Gerhardt, and New Ceramics by Roberto Lugo, each accompanied by artist talks, film screenings, and lectures in response to the work.
This pairing is intentional given that the work of all three artists teaches us how to correct our gaze using mediums, materials, and techniques that we either ignore or take for granted. For example, the way we ignore how our gaze is directed to viewing the Brown or Black body as criminal; the invisibility of our critique with everyday items like ceramics as conveyers of class and privilege; and the way we may find ourselves surrounded by history in the making to such a degree that we tune it out, figuring that it will soon be written somewhere.
In the case of Weems, her archival pigment prints, silkscreen panels, and video works reposition the Black body, placing it front and center. Blurred images and color blocks strip us of our senses, forcing us to reckon with stereotypes and internalized biases.
Commonly shouted during the Black Lives Matter protests as a way of inspiring call and response, Gerhardt’s Mic Check is not just a nifty phrase, but a catalyst and tool. Through his candid black-and-white photographs of protests from 2014–2021, Gerhardt’s work is a passionate call to the viewer to take notice and recognize how history is unfolding before our eyes. Roberto Lugo’s contemporary ceramic pieces and iconography ask readers to reconsider pottery making outside of the Eurocentric gaze. Lugo disrupts the narrative by transforming the surface of porcelain into an altar space, paying homage to faces and bodies who have traditionally not been seen or heard within landscapes reserved for wealth and white skin.
When talking to Gerhardt and Lugo about what viewers can expect from the exhibitions, they shared similar responses that extend beyond the art itself. For Gerhardt, no matter where you sit on the spectrum of the Black Lives Matter movement, he hopes to create a conversation. For Lugo, who grew up not knowing that a career in the arts was possible, let alone working in ceramics, he “hopes that people will see what I do as a form of resourcefulness.” During a period of great social and cultural change in our nation’s history, Weems, Gerhardt, and Lugo invite us to see art, and to play outside of our boundaries.
—Shanta Lee Gander