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Written in Smoke and Fire
On show at MIT List in Cambridge, Edgar Arceneaux reflects on cultural and personal memory and is informed by the belief that all systems of knowledge are contingent.
Edgar Arceneaux’s work in sculpture, drawing, and film reflects on cultural and personal memory, and is informed by the belief that all modes of inquiry and systems of knowledge are contingent. His recent projects consider a number of complicated personal legacies and, more broadly, the erasures and connections between seemingly disparate historical narratives.
His solo exhibition at the List Center presents three interlocking projects. The body of work titled A Book and a Medal (2014) takes inspiration in part from the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., connecting 1960s history with the landscape of contemporary postindustrial American cities.
At the center of this group is Arceneaux’s hour-long video A Time to Break Silence (2013). Shot in an abandoned church in Detroit, the video brings together excerpts from Dr. King’s last speech, addressing the Vietnam war, and references to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
The Library of Black Lies (2016) is a labyrinthine, Borgesian book repository that evokes, as the artist has stated, part “cabin in the woods, part geode.” Arceneaux reflects on the inherent limits of translation and transcription, interventions that necessarily produce variations in meaning.
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Edgar Arceneaux, A Time To Break Silence: King Vanitas, Third Stage Constellation, 2013
Single-channel HD video with color and sound, enamel, emulsion on silk, aluminum, pallets. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
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Edgar Arceneaux, A Time to Break Silence: The Trading Futures Constellation, 2013. HD video, color and sound, 65 min. Books, crystallized sugar, vitrine, monitor
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of Stacy and John Rubeli
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Edgar Arceneaux, A Book and A Medal II (Unredacted), 2014 – 2015. Seven parts, silver, painting on mirrored glass, handcrafted steel frame and light boxes. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, photo Robert Wedemeyer