Inside the LA Art Exhibition Showcasing the Black & Brown Experience
Co-curators Antoine J. Girard and Melahn Frierson on their acclaimed art show Shattered Glass.
For Antoine ‘AJ’ Girard, the inspiration behind the name of his debut art show, Shattered Glass, stems from a historic Michael Jordan moment more than three decades ago.
During a Nike exhibition game in August, 1985 in Trieste, Italy, Jordan dunked a basketball so powerfully that it shattered the glass of the backboard, forcing referees to have to reset the game.
Girard, who co-curated Shattered Glass alongside Melahn Frierson, said he hopes their debut show makes a similar statement within the art world, which has a long history of erasing Black and brown bodies. The exhibit features the work of 40 international artists of color, stretching from California to South Africa, at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in LA.
“After COVID-19, we had a gap year where things needed to stop. Why would we start and pick it up from the same power structures [that previously existed]?” says Girard. “Let’s make space for everyone to do their thing and to be powerful.”
Shattered Glass, which will be showing through May 22, allows people of color to see reflections of themselves through painting, sculpture and film. Several of the works also explore questions of power, surveillance and justice in the quotidian Black and brown experience while reflecting on radical futures.
Working at blue-chip curator Jeffrey Deitch’s LA gallery for the last three years, Frierson, now the space’s director, spent several months thinking about what her first show should focus on. After watching how civil rights protests last summer challenged various industries to review their lack of racial inclusiveness, Frierson felt that her first exhibit should be a response to what was happening in the world both socially and politically.
She tapped Girard, who’s become known for his extensive educational outreach work in the LA art scene, to help her curate the show. Together, they decided that instead of asking other institutions how they were going to make their spaces more inclusive, Frierson and Girard decided to “just show them” how it should be done.
“We all just needed to channel this into something,” says Frierson, who also runs social media for the Deitch galleries. “I’m tired of being portrayed as angry, or sad. Where’s the joy? Where are the family elements? Where are you and your friends? Where is the pride?”
Why would we start and pick it up from the same power structures [that previously existed]? Let’s make space for everyone to do their thing and to be powerful.
Antoine J. Girard
Visitors to the vast gallery encounter 52 pieces of artwork and 11 video projections that depict the unique experiences of people of color. There are representations of cultural pride, works that celebrate body positivity and self-love, and artwork that shows love ranging from romantic to familial and platonic.
Kohshin Finley, an LA-based artist known for his large-scale grisaille portraits, created an original piece titled “Marque and Tiffany” for the exhibit. The oil painting stems from a portrait of the couple who are Finley’s longtime friends and supporters.
“It was just about showing love,” Finley says. “It’s about showing people who look like me outside of conflict, and just in the midst of love, surrounded by trees, surrounded by energies; just sitting together.”
Finley says this piece represents the type of work that he plans to continue exploring within his practice. His brother, Delfin Finley, also has a painting displayed in the exhibit.
Near the entrance of the gallery are two sets of sculptures created by Baltimore-based artist Murjoni Merriweather. The first is a group of figures adorned with gold chains and grills in their mouths, and the second is of three Black women whose bodies are made from brightly colored individual braids. For Merriweather, each of the sculptures represent the singularity of Black culture.
“I just think that we’re a beautiful people and that we need to be celebrated as such,” the 25-year-old says about the sculptures. “I love when children see my work and they’re like ‘Oh my God. I look like her,’ and I’m like, ‘Yes, you do girl!’”
And I think young kids need that too. To know that, ‘Yo, I’m in art. I am art. I don’t have to fit the norm that society wants me to be if I don’t want to.’”
Merriweather says group shows like Shattered Glass are important because it makes her feel encouraged that artists of color are “building our own community of uplifting each other.” (Merriweather’s best friend, Amani Lewis who recommended her for the show, and friend Ambrose Murray are also featured in the exhibit.)
For Murray, who started showing her artwork in galleries last year, being a part of the Shattered Glass exhibit was an opportunity for her to network and meet other artists of color within the community.
“I’m really happy that AJ and Melahn had the space to create this exhibition,” says Murray, who specializes in large-scale collages with fabric and paint. “I think these galleries that have a lot of history and power attached to their name, it’s important for them to keep doing that work and shifting positions of power and decision making over to Black and brown creatives of all ages.”
Murray, who is currently based in Florida, created two pieces for the exhibit, “The Girl Who Fell From the Sky,” which depicts two Black girls who appear to be floating in the airspace and “Soft Refusal No. 2,” a dreamy collage of a person with cornrowed hair surrounded by vibrant fabrics.
Other artists featured in the exhibit include South Central-based artist Lauren Halsey, hyper-realistic painter Tyler D. Balloon, sculptor Diana Yesenia Alvarado and Fulton Leroy Washington aka “Mr. Wash,” a self-taught portrait artist who was wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment, but granted clemency in 2016. Shattered Glass also includes video works by 10 artists ranging from established to emerging non-disciplinary filmmakers.
Much like Michael Jordan’s landmark dunk that was a prophecy of the game changer he’d become, Girard and Frierson hope to shatter the hierarchical power structures within the art world.
“We need to just literally, completely destroy everything that was,” Frierson says. “We’re not going back to how things were.”
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Shattered Glass
Where: 925 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles
When: Exhibition runs March 20-May 22, 2021; gallery open Tuesday-Saturday (appointments to visit the gallery can be made by email at la@deitch.com)
Info: (323) 925-3000, deitch.com