Shanequa Gay: Daughters of Metropolitan

EXHIBITION ON VIEW
April 23 - November 27, 2022
Palazzo Bembo
Riva del Carbon, 30124
Venezia, Italy

This exhibition is presented in partnership with:

Daughters of Metropolitan

An exhibition by Shanequa Gay

(Atlanta, GA) CO-OP Art Atlanta and The Curator's Studio are pleased to announce Daughters of Metropolitan, an exhibition by artist SHANEQUA GAY to be presented by the European Cultural Centre during the 59th Venice Biennial. Curated by Shannon Morris, Daughters of Metropolitan is part of the ECC’s larger program, entitled Personal Structures: Reflections.This year’s edition of Personal Structures represents the ECC’s sixth exhibition series within the context of Venice’s bi-annual contemporary art show. Gay’s installation will be on view and open to the public from April 23rd through November 27th, 2022 at the Palazzo Bembo, located on Venice’s Grand Canal, just steps from the Rialto Bridge.

Informed by her extensive study of European decorative arts, Gay’s presentation both remembers and reimagines the spaces where Black girls play - past, present, and future. The installation centers around a diptych featuring their figures within an abstracted representation of Metropolitan Parkway – a major thoroughfare running through the artist’s hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Once populated by prominent black businesses, homes, schools and churches, the vibrant and prosperous street Gay remembers from childhood has since been lost to tragedy and largely abandoned.

Gay’s Daughters move through the technicolor silhouette of a neglected Metropolitan Parkway today. Sporting zebra striped leotards and adorned with crowns of golden hair, some carry with them the forms of other girls depicted in gradient blues and pinks while others display traits of mythological creatures.

Employing the symbolic power of pattern and palette, Gay often references and repurposes art historical conventions in support of her protagonists. For example, in Daughters, the girls' striped leotards invoke a tradition of depicting Black figures in striped clothing to distinguish them as part of a servant class.  However, here - recast on the athletic ensembles of Black girls traveling through the artist’s whimsical dreamscape, stripes conjure the spirit of a team. Much like the figures’ other fantastical features, (antlers, hooves, and hybrid forms generally) stripes act as totems in Gay’s work: unique charms bestowed by shared histories, which endow her figures with a special kind of magic – one perhaps required to effectively navigate the ever-evolving challenges of Black life in America and beyond.

With Daughters, the artist unveils three never-before-seen works including two large-scale sculptural reliefs as well as the exhibit’s eponymous diptych.  The works in this exhibition are presented against a patterned backdrop designed by the artist. Covering the walls of the installation, Gay’s rosette-style motif was inspired by historic Venetian textiles, which often included heraldry (repeating crests or symbols representing families, kingdoms, and nations). Resolving her girls should have their own heraldic symbol, Gay developed a crest featuring their hybrid forms, winding vines, and the crown image associated with the Atlanta-based musical group, Outkast.

Such gestures are typical of Gay’s practice. Liberating tropes from tradition, the artist creates not only an entirely new visual language, but also entirely new narratives – particularly concerning the visibility, autonomy, and representation of Black bodies in art. She is a dream-weaver, a change seeker, and an archivist of cultural memory - collapsing fantasy and reality, past and present, in works which seek new truths for the future of Black people everywhere.

FOR ALL PRESS INQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT: Shannon Morris, The Curator’s Studio

FOR ALL SALES INQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT: Courtney Bombeck, Co-op Art ATL

About the Artist

Multi-media artist Shanequa Gay holds a BA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA from Georgia State University.

Gay has exhibited her work at such prestigious institutions as the Chattanooga African American Museum, the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Hammonds House Museum, Emory University, Le Musée Des Beaux-Arts De Montréal, The Ackland Museum, Jackson Fine Art, Mason Murer, the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

Her work is included in the permanent collections of public institutions such as The Georgia Museum of Art (Athens, GA), The Ackland Museum (Chapel Hill, NC), and The Oglethorpe University Museum (Atlanta, GA) as well as the private collections of Michelle Obama, Arthur Lewis, Sara & John Shlesinger, Eden Bridgeman and Greg Sklenar.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Carry the Wait (Syracuse University, 2022); The Beautiful Tale of Atlannahland (Jackson Fine Art, 2021); Holding Space for Nobility: A Memorial for Breonna Taylor (The Ackland Museum Chapel Hill, 2020); Her Spirit Will Be Our Guide (Jones Carter Gallery, 2020); Lit Without Sherman (Hammonds House Museum, 2019) and Marginalized and Mythologized (Augusta University, 2018).

Recent group exhibitions include: Le Monde Bossale Biennial (Musée Des Beaux-Arts De Montréal, 2021); Of Care and Destruction (Atlanta Contemporary Biennial, 2021); On the Wall (The Albany Museum Georgia, 2020); Fruitful Labors (The Zuckerman Museum Georgia, 2019); and 5 Perspectives (The Steffen Thomas Museum, 2018). 

The artist lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia.

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About the European Cultural Centre

Founded in 2002 by Dutch artist Rene Rietmeyer, the European Cultural Centre is devoted to generating cultural exchange through the organization of international art and architecture exhibitions. Today, the ECC’s ever-expanding network of diverse professionals work to establish cultural centers worldwide with the goal of creating deeper awareness about the serious challenges we all face today. The ECC supports artistic and creative practices across all cultural art forms including (but not limited to) visual arts, dance, performance, theatre, music, literature, and architecture.

Since 2012 the ECC has organized a series of exhibitions entitled Personal Structures which run concurrently with the Venice Biennale. For this year’s edition of Personal Structures, the ECC has organized around the theme of Existence, asking selected artists to reflect upon the relationships between their origins, their present states of being and their futures. "Gay's inclusion in this international dialogue speaks to the universal relevance of her work not only within a historical context but also within this very moment," says curator Shannon Morris.

To learn more please visit the ECC website.