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Exhibition at Dallas Museum of Art explore hope and resilience in the contemporary moment

Lorna Simpson, Blue Turned Temporal

Lorna Simpson, Blue Turned Temporal, 2019, ink, watercolor, and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass, Dallas Museum of Art, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2020.16, © Lorna Simpson. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: James Wang

Exhibition at Dallas Museum of Art explores hope and resilience in the contemporary moment Drawing from the Museum’s encyclopedic collection, including 13 new acquisitions and three major paintings by Dallas-based artists, ‘To Be Determined’ juxtaposes works from across time, geography, and cultures, from the 13th century to the present day, to trace how the resonance of art can shift when presented in new contexts and as viewers imbue them with their own personal meanings. September 27 to December 27, 2020.]]>

Source: Dallas Museum of Art

Through an audience-centered, open-ended approach to interpretation, the exhibition additionally aims to affirm ongoing struggles that are manifesting in new ways in the current moment—including those caused by the pandemic and those related to long-existing barriers and challenges created by systemic racism and other forms of oppression—and the resilience of individuals and communities during this period in history.

Spanning seven centuries of media, geographies, cultures, and perspectives, the cross-departmental exhibition presents evocative—and occasionally unexpected—groupings of works from across the collection in open-ended ways that are designed to elicit and encourage individual interpretation and meaning. Sacred objects, modern sculpture and design, and works by historic and contemporary artists—including Frederic Edwin Church, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mel Bochner, Ida Ten Eyck O’Keeffe, Adam Pendleton, and Hiroshi Yoshida, among others—are juxtaposed throughout the exhibition to invite the viewer to engage with each object in new ways. The presentation includes recent DMA acquisitions of significant works by Thornton Dial, Jeffrey Gibson, Glenn Ligon, Isamu Noguchi, Lorna Simpson, Matthew Wong, and Charles White. To Be Determined will also include a new work by Dallas-based artist Oshay Green and a new commission by designer Ini Archibong. Archibong’s work is a reconceptualized version of theoracle, an interactive sound installation originally commissioned by the DMA for speechless: different by design, which ended its run early when the Museum closed in March due to the pandemic. Unlike the original installation, which was touch-activated, bright, and harmonious, the new work, theoracle, is untouchable, dimmed, and emits an imposing drone—an abstract commentary on the effects of COVID-19 and Archibong’s own reflections on growing up as a Black male in America.

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Exhibition at Dallas Museum of Art explore hope and resilience in the contemporary moment