September 17 - October 17, 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, September 17, 2009, 6-8 pm
Solomon Projects is pleased to present Looking for Light,
Traveling by Night, Radcliffe Bailey's thought provoking
exhibition featuring drawings and sculpture from the Toledo
Museum of Art's Guest Artist Pavilion Project (G.A.P.P), and
Windward Coast (2009), a variation on a site-specific
floor installation presented in the 2008 exhibition NeoHooDoo:
Art for the Forgotten Faith co-organized by The Menil Collection
and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. This exhibition, Bailey's
third solo show at Solomon Projects, will be on view September
17 - October 17, 2009.
In Looking for Light, Traveling by Night, Bailey returns
to his roots as a sculptor, experimenting with materials and
processes to investigate themes of transition and triumph with
specific references to the Underground Railroad and the transatlantic
slave trade. Two complementary bodies of work are on view Windward
Coast (2009) and the G.A.P.P. works (2007). Presented together,
they create a visual and conceptual narrative linking the stories
of Africans who jumped ship in order to escape captivity, with
African Americans who fled northward at night toward freedom.
Covering the floor of the main gallery, Windward Coast
(2009) is composed of thousands of wooden piano keys, assembled
by Bailey to form the jagged surface of a turbulent ocean. Floating
among wave-like forms is a single sculptural element, a plaster
bust coated in black glitter. The simplicity and elegance of
the assemblage makes a powerful statement with multiple reads.
A surprising group of objects produced in 2007 while Bailey
was an artist in residence at the Toledo Museum of Art's Guest
Artist Pavilion Project (G.A.P.P), fill the gallery's front
space. An oversized steel and glass lantern depicts a ghostlike
image of a Civil War soldier in its mirrored sides, and three
large drawings of tobacco, a fishing vessel, and a railroad
lantern, were created by burning paper with dripping molten
glass and a branding implement. The experimental nature of the
residency invites artists to explore the possibilities of art
glass. Bailey used the opportunity to reexamine some of his
earlier themes, in particular, the migration of African Americans
from the South to northern destinations during the time of the
Civil War. The G.A.P.P. objects have personal associations for
the artist whose father was a railroad engineer and whose ancestors
fled north with the Underground Railroad.
Radcliffe Bailey's work has been included in numerous solo and
group exhibitions in museums and galleries in the United States
and abroad. His sculpture, paintings, works on paper and prints
may be seen in prestigious public and private collections notably
the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Birmingham Museum
of Art, Birmingham, AL; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, NY; Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
D.C., and the High Museum of Art. In October 2009, Bailey will
be the subject of a major exhibition at the Afro-American Cultural
Center in Charlotte, NC, and in 2011, Bailey will have a mid
career exhibition.
Radcliffe Bailey lives and works in Atlanta, GA.