Juxtapoz Magazine – As I Live and Breathe: Angela Hennessy @ SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco

Entering As I Are living and Breathe at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco is walking into a galaxy produced totally by the palms of a Black girl. Not that I’m certain that the world that we inhibit could be orchestrated by any individual else, but paying out a early morning gazing around Angela Hennessy’s creations only expounded my inclinations. 

 

Unlike standard artwork spaces, Hennessy has painted the gallery walls all Black. An ode to lots of things–its romance to white, the distress (and comfort and ease) of darkness, the coloration of Black skin–but most apparently a remark on neutrality. “The conventional in the art world is a default to white partitions, as if these walls are neutral. As several of us have been speaking about for so very long, there is no neutrality,” she shared. And as we continued our discussion within just the room, that topic trapped with me. Nothing is at any time actually neutral. And frequently in our tries to do so, the length is far more so accentuated.

As Hennessy mentioned herself, “Black is a shade that has several layers of meaning, and normally meanings that are even contradictory. Black can be the absence of color, all shades put together. Some however say it is not a shade at all. It is utilised as a term of racial identity. In Western European cultures it is a principal signal of grief or mourning. But Black can also be a calming shade. Physiologically, it is much less stimulating on your eyes.” Nearly every single do the job in As I Reside and Breathe has a major ingredient of Blackness, building this dizzying impact as you enter the gallery place. Some operates pop in advance of your eyes, although some others carefully vibrate against the wall.

If neutrality is a line, then its opposite character is cyclical. Circles and orbits are central to the perform. Inside Hennessy’s cosmos are pieces that pull the gaze upwards, the way a capturing star catches your eye in the night time sky. One perform entitled Orbits 2 characteristics rectangular and round rings that appear to dance about just about every other, like a portal preparing to transportation you into a distinct dimension. A different is a ball manufactured of artificial Black hair, sparse with sprigs of Hennessy’s own tresses, which hangs from the ceiling. Enveloped with a golden ring of blonde loops, it is difficult to not make a different galactic comparison to Saturn’s planetary rings. 

Regardless of the universe that Hennessy’s designed above you, each 10 minutes Hennessy’s voice will bring you back to Earth, (one more cyclical aspect.) An audio poem that Hennessy wrote to accompany the function, its phrases implore us to imagine about our existence on this world and the bodies that tether us listed here. “system black, overall body brown, surrender to blue. One particular breath, Then two…Then free of charge, Sure no cost.” When the poem echoes throughout the gallery, the place will take on a heaviness. Like a weighted blanket laid about you, it gently pushes you into the Earthly floor. 

As I Live and Breathe is a exhibit that reminds me that while dying and grief has been a more constant existence in our earth the previous couple of yrs, its visual appearance is not the reverse of life, but rather an extension of it. “You testify by means of your residing breathing system. And as we’re right here living and respiration, there is so significantly electricity going on. The lifeless go by. The stars go by. We’re not neutral witnesses. We’re members at the similar time.” —Shaquille Heath