Date and Time for this Past Event
- Friday, Feb 4, 2022 6pm - 10pm
Location
Details
February First Friday // February 4, 6–10pm
Join us for First Friday we’ll be open until 10pm! Please note that masks are required when visiting Artspace.
Gallery 1: Vonnie Quest // There's Black People in Milwaukee: Rose Theatre
Durham-based artist Vonnie Quest re-imagines the former Rose Theater in Milwaukee, WI. Originally built in 1917, the 425 seat theater (later renamed the Regal theater) was built specifically for African American audiences. As often happened with Black businesses created in the early part of the 20th century, the Rose Theater was demolished in 1958, its history erased. Quest’s decision to feature this recreation as the main anchor for his exhibition comes from his interest in exploring the intersections, mechanics, and deconstruction of narratives, place, and politics. Like Quest’s hometown of Milwaukee, Raleigh also has a history of gentrification that has threatened to erase the story of traditionally Black spaces and businesses. Quest will use this installation to explore the concept of how narratives about people and places are written after their spaces have disappeared.
This project will bring the Afro+Projection Lab to Raleigh while at the same time adding the additional component of the theater installation. Re-imagining the Rose Theater in conjunction with the Afro Projection Lab will create an immersive alternate future where the theater was never torn down and Black filmmakers are celebrated.
Sponsored by South Arts.
Gallery 2: Jennifer Markowitz // Fleshmap: My Unraveling Geographies
After completing her residency in January 2021, artist Jennifer Markowitz presents a solo exhibition of her work, which maps the geography of being lost. In the series, Markowitz uses thread to circumnavigate the geography of memory in all its disarray and confusion. Through relentless re-visits of intimate terrains, she has mapped a life frequently interrupted by mental illness and transfixed by encounters with absence and presence. Specifically, Markowitz is gripped by the mysterious traces our bodies leave behind and how embroidery—a medium more commonly associated with delicate embellishments or femininity—can reveal those private, brutal territories.
There will be 20 completed panels, each hand-embroidered on a variety of ground materials. Each panel excavates personal events beginning in 1985 and spanning several US cities as well as multiple international relocations. Within each panel are images and text pulled from memories, traumas, confusions, artifacts and maps.
Upfront Gallery: Fiber Artists in the Triangle // Beyond the Fray
Featuring textile works by Joyce Watkins King, Barbara Lee Smith, Celia Gray, Caitlin Cary, Becky Joye, Aliyah Bonnette, Ann Roth, Sharron Parker, Colleen Bee and Gretchen Morrissey
