Free Mason: Pick Up The Pieces
2013
March 7 – April 6
Galley X
Curator
Rashayla Marie Brown
Contributing Artists
Rashayla Marie Brown
Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:
Free Mason: Pick Up The Pieces navigates cultural fantasies and icons through their mystical, constructed, and romantic elements. Incorporating performative gestures and personae that hold both direct and esoteric relationships to funk, hip-hop, rock, and blues, Rashayla Marie Brown (BFA 2013) attempts to reimagine signifiers surrounding race, gender, and sexuality connected to these forms. Masters in the realm of construction, ‘freemasons’ reference a secret society that employs symbols and rituals related to mysticism and craft. Citing this experience of collective consciousness, Brown’s works present a visual exploration of the expressive qualities and constructed aesthetics of popular culture. At once familiar and strange, photographs are a metaphor for the constructed nature of identity in modernity and post-modernity, and as a space to redeem, claim, unpack, and reposition icons related to cultural consumption.
Programs
April 3, 2013, 4:30-5:30 PM
Program statement from the SUGs/SITE archive:
“In conjunction with the exhibition, Brown will host an artist talk featuring SAIC faculty member Shahrazad Shareef on March 21 [*later changed*]. The conversation will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Gallery X during the weekly meeting of student group Black at SAIC.”
This program was put on in conjunction with the student organization Black at SAIC
Exhibition Material
Free Mason: Pick Up the Pieces was featured in SAIC’s E + D Spring 2013 newsletters.
This newsletter is stored in SAIC’s digital collection.
Free Mason: Pick Up the Pieces is featured on artist Rashayla Marie Brown’s website.
https://www.rmbstudios.com/FreeMason-Pick-Up-the-Pieces