Jessica Silverman is pleased to present Successors, a presentation of new and recent works by artists Isaac Julien, Coreen Simpson and Rose B. Simpson at the ADAA Art Show, taking place from November 3 to November 7, 2021.

Works by these three artists were selected to explore how genealogy, memorialization, and ancestral processes inform our present. Each of the artists will exhibit works that mine the historical and archival to re-configure, confront and transcend the past. Isaac Julien’s (b. 1960) photographic series Lessons of the Hour reimagines significant moments from the life of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, made in conjunction with Julien’s 2019 film of the same name. Also featured are Julien’s black-and-white tintype photographs from the parallel series Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow titled after a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Julien’s works and inspiration from Douglass conceptually modify contemporary assumptions around progress, inheritance, and freedom.

Works on view by African American photographer Coreen Simpson (b. 1942) blend portraiture and collage. The series “Aboutface” challenges traditional modes of representation by combining photographs of clocks, eyes, mouths and cosmic landscapes into portraits. These images foreclose upon any singular gaze of the racialized body, instead celebrating an escape from any exclusive categorization. Rose B. Simpson’s (b. 1983) freestanding ceramic sculptures use clay as a medium to address belonging and a shared humanity. This presentation includes a series of three sculptures (Intent I, Intent II and Intent III), each adorned with beads made from ostrich eggshell and sea glass, suggesting a togetherness informed by her Indigenous upbringing. Employing ceramic processes dating from the 6th century within a modern lens, Simpson’s works upend barriers between past with present and individual with collective.

INSTALLATION VIEW