What is that leaping in your chest?
Curated by Alexandra Foradas
November 10 – December 30, 2017
Participating Artists:
Susan Anthony, Fern T. Apfel, Simone Bailey, Joyce Chan, Ryan Chase Clow, Megan Galbraith, Alexandra Hammond, Tatana Kellner, Darian Longmire, Rob O'Neil, Fernando Orellana, Vincent Romaniello, Allie Wilkinson, Holly Wilson, Quay Quinn Wolf, and Mike Yood.
Press:
What Is That Leaping in Your Chest?' at Collarworks. Times Union. William Jaeger. December 2017
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Why and by whose power were you sent?
What do you see that you may wish to steal?
Why all this dancing? Why do your dark bodies
Drink up the light? What are you demanding
That we feel? Have you stolen something? Then
What is that leaping in your chest? What is
The nature of your mission?
From Tracy K Smith, “The United States Welcomes Youâ€
When he coined the term ‘American Dream’ in 1931, historian James Truslow Adams described it as “dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position”
Ever since, if not before, the status of the American Dream has been in question. Is it truly a promise offered to all? Or is it just that, a dream? To quote Malcolm X speaking in 1964 and, more recently, Bernie Sanders: was America always for some, or has it become, a nightmare?
Can we tell our children, in the words of the United States 44th president, that”America is big enough to accommodate all their dreams”or is the American Dream, in the words of the 45th president, “dead"?
In a moment where the circumstances of individuals’ birth and position are increasingly the focus of scrutiny, the artists in this exhibition interrogate the uncertainty of access to the American Dream.
-Alexandra Foradas, Curator
