Well/Being: An Exhibition on Healing and Repair features 12 established and emerging artists and musicians presenting multi-disciplinary approaches to pandemic-related issues such as kinship, chronic illness, convalescence, intimacy, the emotional costs of caregiving, and various incarnations of love and community.
The exhibition was conceived before the Covid-19 outbreak and then postponed for one year. In the interim, many artists began addressing the complexities of daily life during this pandemic era, isolation and solitude, and the concurrent outcries against racist violence. This period underscored how structural racism was already, in the words of exhibiting artist Carrie Mae Weems, a “pre-existing condition”—a chronic pandemic exacerbated by the acute one.
Responding to the urgent need for social and cultural spaces in which to pause, reflect, and find solace, we encouraged artists to transform the Museum to serve those purposes. Half the exhibiting artists are presenting newly commissioned works for the exhibition. Well/Being also includes participatory workshops, performances, and conversations created to provide an environment in which visitors can experience forms of connection, resilience, action, and hope in turbulent times.
This exhibition poses questions about being and well-being. How do people—queer bodies, Indigenous groups, Black and Brown bodies, bodies in pain, threatened bodies, vulnerable populations, students—interact with America’s cultural landscape and find space to thrive? How do we create meaning in the face of erasure, whether through ritual, reclaiming symbols, giving form to memories, or envisioning utopian fantasies? How do we resist cultural amnesia and engage with the past, that is, take on the work needed to move forward and heal? Responding to these questions, each in their own way, the artists in this exhibition create pathways to understand and reflect on healing.
University Art Museum
University at Albany
State University of New York
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12222
518-442-4035
www.albany.edu/museum
Copyright © 2021 University Art Museum
Darcie Abbatiello, Registrar/Collections Manager
Berly Brown, Education and Public Engagement Coordinator
Gil Gentile, Exhibition and Publication Designer
Lily Hopkins, Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation Intern
Catherine McTague, Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation Intern
Corinna Ripps Schaming, Director/Chief Curator
Robert Shane, Guest Curatorial Consultant
Christine Snyder, Office and Operations Manager
Jeffrey Wright-Sedam, Preparator/Facilities Manager
Designer: Gil Gentile
Editor: Elizabeth Floyd Mair
Support for the University Art Museum exhibitions and programs is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, The University at Albany Foundation, and the University at Albany Alumni Association.
Additional support for programming is provided by University Auxiliary Services at Albany, the UAlbany Performing Arts Center, the New York State DanceForce, Rose & Kiernan, Inc., and the Jack and Gertrude Horan Memorial Endowment Fund for Student Outreach. The University Art Museum is grateful to those who generously loaned works to the exhibition: Tiffany Hott; the Hudgins Family; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen; Greg Pettyjohn; Gardy St. Fleur; SEPTEMBER Gallery, Hudson, New York; Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York; and the Weissman Family.