Objects and Power, installation view with work by Samuel Levi Jones, Nyeema Morgan, and Michael Rakowitz | Photography by Joel Tsui '16, Salt '17, MFA '19
Dates
- On View: October 4 – December 13, 2024
- Reception: Friday, October 4 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm, ICA
About the Exhibition
Objects and Power is a group exhibition that examines the systems surrounding collections, investigating how history is told through the processes of acquiring and presenting art, artifacts, and texts. Objects and Power features ten artists whose work examines the roots of collecting and museums; instances of extraction, theft, and erasure; themes of Indigeneity, access, and ownership; and examples of artists and community groups telling stories and giving value to objects on their own terms.
Participating artists include:
- Morehshin Allahyari
- Maya Tihtiyas Attean (member of the Penobscot Nation)
- Samuel Levi Jones
- SaraNoa Mark
- Nyeema Morgan
- Gala Porras-Kim
- Michael Rakowitz
- Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)
- Stephanie Syjuco
- William Villalongo
Objects and Power was developed to serve as a living laboratory, with themes woven throughout the curriculum at Maine College of Art & Design. The work featured in the exhibition opens up a series of conversations about the role and responsibilities of institutional collections. Objects and Power challenges audiences to question one’s role in the process of making and invites agency in navigating art world systems.
Generous support for the exhibition was provided through the Jeremy Moser and Laura Kittle Fund.
Events
- Visiting Artist Talk with Samuel Levi Jones
In partnership with MECA&D’s Academic Studies department
Monday, October 7, 2024, 12:00-1:00pm, Osher Hall, MECA&D Campus - “Objects & Indigeneity” student-led conversation with Casey Matȟó
Tuesday, October 15, 2024, 3:00-4:00pm, The ICA at MECA&D - ReadyReMade led by Assistant Professor Benjamin Spalding’s OBJECT OBJECT OBJECT class
October 21 – November 2, 2024, Bob Crewe and A&GA window galleries
Artists: Olivia Brown, Gracie Crow, Landen Farrell, Stan Lambert, Jess Lee, Christina Morse, Anna Nahlik, Maggie Novatka, Emma Roche, Jai Luc Santoro, Augustine Schug, Zachary Toomy, Bea Wallace, Lexi Wu
Thrifted, gifted, found and manufactured. Presented in tandem with the ICA’s Objects and Power, ReadyReMade is a student exhibition of a collection of objects exploring grief, empowerment, myth, comfort, and memory through a variety of modified readymade objects.
Taking inspiration from Mike Kelly’s work regarding love hours, as a representation of the unseen emotional value embedded into the mundane, ReadyReMade relies on language, staging, context, and displacement to heighten the latent magic residing within these objects. - Trans Objects and Representation” student-led conversation with Lyra Miller
Thursday, November 14, 2024, 3:00-4:00pm, The ICA at MECA&D - Objects and Power Book Display
On view through December 13, Joanne Waxman Library
In partnership with MECA&D's Joanne Waxman Library and in conversation with the ICA's exhibition, Objects and Power, this book display features work that interrogates how the acquisition, organization, and presentation of information, art, artifacts, and archives reproduces or disrupts systems of power. The full list of publications can be found here. - Adventures in Art
In partnership with MECA&D's Master of Arts in Teaching program, the ICA hosted over 250 junior and high school students for activity-based tours of Objects and Power. - Decolonization and Institutions, panel discussion with Rose Logie, MECA&D Assistant Professor of Art History; Sayantan Mukhopadhyay, Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Portland Museum of Art; moderated by Julio Rivera '24
This event will be rescheduled for a future date.
Press
State of the Art: Objects and Power - October 27, 2024
Gallery
