Ciphers of Identity

Group Show

Jun 3 – Jul 7, 1994

Barbara Kruger

Untitled, 1993

Artists

Lutz Bacher
Emilio Cruz
Cheryl Donegan
Lyle Ashton Harris
Thomas Allen Harris
Oliver Herring
Tom Kalin
Deborah Kass
Mary Kelly
Barbara Kruger
Simon Leung
Adrian Piper
Yvonne Rainer
Mark Rappaportg
Elaine Reichek
Marlon T. Riggs
Jane Weinstock
Fred Wilson
Nina Yankowitz

Description

Throughout history, artists have often played a significant role in shaping national and personal identity. Organized by Maurice Berger, Senior Fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School for Social Research, New York, the exhibition explores the ways in which artists of varying racial, ethnic, sexual, and economic communities have defined cultural identity in the politically charged climate of America in the 1990’s. At a time when racism, sexism and homophobia have become the linchpins in censorious and oppressive attacks against marginal or oppositional culture, artists are now faced with fundamental political and aesthetic questions: In the age of mass communication, can artists produce effective and moving work within high cultural contexts? Should cultural figures and social communities under attack define themselves in relation to individual racial, sexual and ethnic groups and risk divisiveness, or should a cultural politics of coalition and consensus be encouraged? Is it possible for artists to represent themselves through multiple identities? What role should social, cultural, and art history play in redefining the role of self in modern society?