Connections and relationships between individuals are often the source from which the blending of cultural practices and concepts begins, often in fascinating, curious, and bewitching ways. David Hammons’ serene Buddha stature with an African mask as its head radiates a multitude of cross-cultural references about deities, worship, serenity, beauty, synthesis, and adaptation. The fact that the combination of the two found objects feels perfectly aligned aesthetically and spiritually speaks to the unexpected elevation and richness that synthesis can yield. Jennie C. Jones’s spare drawings of vertical music staffs extend this blending into our minds as ethereal, random, calming cords of music or chants. Visually, Hammon’s and Jone’s works together remind viewers of the many ways solemnness can be found—created by nature and by artists.
Today in the Hudson Valley, distinct, individual narratives are declared, not quieted, shaded, or reshaped by the assimilation embraced by previous generations. Lyle Ashton Harris’s bold assemblages Trophy Piece (2020), and Antiquariato Busted (2020) embed diaristic photographs printed on aluminum and personal ephemera (for example, Harris’s dreadlocks) on a background of printed fabric from Ghana. Harris is boldly using his work to say who he is, what cultural perspective he brings to the area. Jeffrey Gibson’s Infinite Indigenous Queer Love (2020) is both his unapologetic personal narrative and his self-loving embrace that he offers to others.