Charting Course
Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center’s ArtNow biennial returns under guest curator Lindsay Aveilhé, bringing thirteen artists together for The Soul Is a Wanderer.
FIRST INTRODUCED IN 2012, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center’s exhibition ArtNow is currently in its tenth edition. This year, Lindsay Aveilhé, director of the Gardiner Gallery of Art at Oklahoma State University, has taken the reins as guest curator, bringing thirteen fresh faces to the museum’s Eleanor Kirkpatrick Gallery.
Traditionally a group show, ArtNow artists range in age from twenty-five to sixty-five, hail from Nigeria to Louisiana, and work in all types of media, including painting, sculpture, video, installation, performance, photography, and ceramics. The show takes its title, The Soul Is a Wanderer, from a poem by US Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022, Oklahoman Joy Harjo. Using the poem’s concept of a reimagined future, each artist created a new artwork for the show.
“I was so deeply drawn to each of the artist’s work because of their careful consideration of pressing issues of our time, whether personal, ancestral, local, or more all-encompassing,” says Aveilhé. “In reflecting on topics such as identity, history, or our environment, the artists are on a journey of discovery, acting as storytellers and poets through their work.” Nowhere is that more evident than in a video piece by Reservation Dogs writer and director Sterlin Harjo, starring Joy Harjo herself reading from the poem containing the show’s title.
Most of the show looks to Oklahoma’s unique landscape—and its people—for inspiration. One artist used the state’s iconic red earth as a material, paying homage to the land and the many generations who have walked it. “Ultimately, there is a real reverence and love for Oklahoma, its future, and its people.”
ArtNow: The Soul is a Wanderer will be on view through January 15, 2024, at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in Oklahoma City. – RYAN STEADMAN