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, installation view of A Time To Break Silence, 2013. Single-channel HD video with color and sound, 1 hour and 4 minute. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
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.
Edgar Arceneaux  A Pattern, A Figure, A Reflection I-V, 2014 Steel, glass mirror, c-print, canvas, fluorescent light fixtures Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Photo: Robert Wedemeyer
Top: Edgar Arceneaux, installation view of A Time To Break Silence, 2013. Single-channel HD video with color and sound, 1 hour and 4 minute. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Above: Edgar Arceneaux, A Pattern, A Figure, A Reflection I-V, 2014. Steel, glass mirror, c-print, canvas, fluorescent light fixtures. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, photo Robert Wedemeyer
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.
Edgar Arceneaux A Time to Break Silence: Reliquary of the Stars, 2014 Acrylic on satin, mounted on MDF on yardstick railing, found plaster relics from St. Anne's church in Detroit, 2 Bibles (1 prop, 1 real), 5 pieces of electronic motherboard, prosthetic rubber mask, wood frame, wood shelf, pallets Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
Edgar Arceneaux, A Time to Break Silence: Reliquary of the Stars, 2014. Acrylic on satin, mounted on MDF on yardstick railing, found plaster relics from St. Anne's church in Detroit, 2 Bibles (1 prop, 1 real), 5 pieces of electronic motherboard, prosthetic rubber mask, wood frame, wood shelf, pallets. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
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.
Edgar Arceneaux  Library of Black Lies, 2016  Wood, mirror, glass, mylar, newspaper, hardbound books, sugar crystals, lighting fixture, audio component.  Courtesy of the artist, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Bruxelles.. Photo © Hélène Hilaire, 2016.
Edgar Arceneaux, Library of Black Lies, 2016. Wood, mirror, glass, mylar, newspaper, hardbound books, sugar crystals, lighting fixture, audio component. Courtesy of the artist, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Bruxelles, photo © Hélène Hilaire, 2016
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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