New York City’s Museum of Arts and Design is planning the first institutional survey of Sonya Clark, an artist whose interactive installations use everyday materials to highlight aspects of Black history and culture that are frequently suppressed or invisible. Slated to open in the fall of 2022, it will bring together Clark’s large-scale participatory projects with individual artworks in a comprehensive overview of her thirty-year career.
Sonya Clark: Collective Encounters
Sonya Clark, Edifice and Mortar, 2018. Mixed media including embossed bricks, hair, plexiglass, and steel, 39 x 72 x 15 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Sonya Clark: Monumental Cloth, Many, 2019. One hundred hand-woven linen cloths and madder dye, 18.5 x 36 inches. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA. Installation view: DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA. Photo: Mel Taing 2021.
Sonya Clark, Monumental, 2019. Woven linen, madder dye, and tea stain. 180 x 360 inches. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA. Photo: Carlos Avendaño.
Sonya Clark, The Hair Craft Project: Hairstylists with Sonya, 2013. Eleven inkjet photographs, 29 x 29 inches each. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, Frederick Brown Fund, Samuel Putnam Avery Fund, and Helen and Alice Colburn Fund.
Sonya Clark, Hair Craft Project: Hairstyles on Canvas, 2013. Silk threads, beads, shells, and yarn on eleven canvases, Nine at 29 x 29 inches; Two at 33 x 33 inches. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, Frederick Brown Fund, Samuel Putnam Avery Fund, and Helen and Alice Colburn Fund.
“Sometimes the little things you don’t think are anything while they’re happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.”
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