Dimensions Variable: Multiracial Identity Firelei Báez Yael Ben-Zion Cecile Chong Dennis Redmoon Darkeem Nicky Enright Lorra Jackson Sara Jimenez Redell & Jimenez Saya Woolfalk Curated by Gabriel de Guzman April 4--May 10, 2013 The 2010 census shows a 32 percent increase since 2000 of Americans who identify themselves as belonging to a multiracial background, representing the country's growing diversity. Dimensions Variable: Multiracial Identity features artists whose work expresses aspects of their multifaceted and highly individual backgrounds. The exhibition moves beyond the polarized discussions of race and identity politics of the late 1980s and '90s and contests the idea of a "post-racial" society presented by political commentators after the election of Barack Obama. In the four years since the biracial president's first inauguration, race has remained a critical and contentious topic. Challenging a monolithic view of race, this exhibition examines contemporary issues of identity, hybridism, and racial ambiguity. Several artists in the show directly tackle issues that relate to race and cultural awareness. Others deal with these issues subtly by acknowledging the spread of multiculturalism in our global society and the ways in which race and ethnicity are fluid and depend on perception and context. Current artists are looking at the political implications of racial categories and views about mixing cultures. Nicky Enright explores the U.S. census, its history of ingrained prejudices, and the absurdity of categorizing one's race into insufficient and inaccurate labels; the census has only allowed respondents to indicate more than one race since 2000. Israeli-American artist Yael Ben-Zion's photographic series investigates the implications of intermarriage. Herself part of an interfaith marriage, she was appalled when she learned of the State of Israel's campaign to target Jews who were "lost" to intermarriage. Her photographs depict other couples who are facing challenges because they chose to share their lives regardless of their ethnic origins, races, or religions. By exposing the problems of categorization, artists are opening up the dialogue about identity to make it more inclusive. Lorra Jackson's paintings explore her own multi-ethnic background of Korean and African American. Her figurative series on the platypus—an animal that was difficult for scientists to classify when it was discovered—challenges culturally-defined notions regarding race and ethnicity. Cecile Chong, who was born and raised in Ecuador of Chinese parents, creates cross-cultural narratives using subjects and materials that are appropriated from international sources. Her encaustic and multi-media works depict figures in fantastical landscapes that reflect the recurring global exchange of ideas and influences. For these artists, personal significance and experience are portrayed in a way that is relevant to broad audiences. Sara Jimenez's drawings on nylon explore her relationship to her Filipino grandmother, as the artist reflects on her own identity. The nylon material represents a fragile, permeable representation, as well as a second skin available in a range of hues to match one's complexion. Jimenez's video and performance collaboration with Kaitlynn Redell looks at the concept of "inbetweenness" and how one's sense of self is a fluid, active, and variable construct. Dennis Redmoon Darkeem addresses the historical displacement of people of color, integrating imagery and objects from his Native American and African American cultural roots into his mixed-media work. Mixed race identity can lead to a sense of feeling caught between cultures. To address this disorientation, artists are exploring ideas about hybridism, ambiguity, and transmutation. Firelei Báez explores her Dominican and Haitian identity through Caribbean folklore, black female subjectivity, and aspects of her personal history. She re-conceptualizes and challenges romanticized notions of the tropics in her Ciguapa series, which depicts a mythological, shape-shifting female creature that dwells in the Dominican highlands and constantly transitions from animal to human to vegetative forms. In The Empathics, Saya Woolfalk depicts an invented race of women, a mix of ethnic identities, who progressively transform from human to plants. With videos, sculptures, multi-media installations, and performances, Woolfalk's project portrays an allegory for how conceptions of race and identity might evolve. Through their investigations, these artists show that issues of race and identity remain complex and continually shifting. By engaging this topic in new ways, their work fosters an open, inclusive, and ongoing dialogue. Recognizing that today's viewers are more culturally aware, artists challenge us to acknowledge the significance of the growing diversity in our communities.

• published: 08 Apr 2013
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