NeoHooDoo: Meet Me in Miami
Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Go-Go Dancing Platform) 1991 Installation view from "Lifestyle - From Subculture to High Fashion" Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
It’s not uncommon, when visiting the Miami area during March Break, to run into fellow Canadians; the roads beachward are replete with Ontario and Quebec license plates, and overheard conversations seem to involve the words “Montreal,” “Harper” or “79 cents on the dollar” more so than they do “mojito,” “sunscreen,” or my personal favourite, “Bernie Madoff sucks!”
Still, it was a surprise to walk into the Miami Art Museum last week and see a few works that felt downright down-home: the group exhibition “NeoHooDoo” prominently features art from Brian Jungen and Rebecca Belmore alongside pieces by varied Cuban, Guatemalan, Brazilian, Jamaican, Puerto Rican and American artists. (The exhibition originated at Houston’s Menil Collection last June and moved to New York’s PS 1 in the fall. Miami is its final stop.)
The full title for this exhibition is “NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith,” a premise inspired by part by poet Ishmael Reed. In the 1970s, Reed coined the term NeoHooDoo to define a continuation of spiritual practice outside of definable faiths or creeds. He also proposed that “every man is an artist, and every artist a priest”—a lofty sentiment, to be sure, but also one resonant with possibility.
Prior to “NeoHooDoo,” Menil curator Franklin Sirmans was best known as an editor for Flash Art and as a curator of “One Planet Under a Groove,” a well-received 2001 show on hip-hop and contemporary art. Here Sirmans gathers works from contemporary artists who might be construed to work in that grey zone between religion and atheism, between physical migration and spiritual steadfastness. Ritual actions, totemic objects and sacred symbols all make an appearance to varying degrees, as do glimpses of the brutality, strife and cultural upheaval that can make both spirituality and creativity necessary tools for individual survival.
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Brian Jungen 1990 2007 Courtesy Catriona Jeffries Gallery Vancouver © Brian Jungen |
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