Last Updated on June 22, 2023, 5:13 PM | Published: June 22, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY — In keeping with the ethos of showcasing the cutting edge of Oklahoma’s modern art world, Oklahoma Contemporary presents a full-scale exhibition of brand new and recent works from creators across the state as “ArtNow” every two years.
Featuring a special guest curator and a common, unifying theme among the works created or selected, ArtNow offers audiences a glimpse into the state’s current artistic climate, and into some of the biggest recent names and most exciting burgeoning talents of Oklahoma’s art world.
For the 2023 installment, Tulsa-based author and art historian Lindsay Aveilhé (Director of OSU’s Gardiner Gallery of Art) rallied selected artists around the poem “A Map to the Next World” by Muscogee-Oklahoman poet and 2019-22 US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo.
“The works in ‘The Soul is a Wanderer’ evoke the landscape of Oklahoma, its topography and our shared reality,” Aveilhé said in her introductory essay for the exhibition, “as a site for questioning, dreaming, and action.”
Opening Thursday, June 22nd with a gala fundraiser event, “ArtNow: The Soul is a Wanderer” then opens for free to the public Friday, June 23rd and will remain at Contemporary through January 15th of next year.
‘Make Your Own Map’
Rather than direct the show’s themes with a simple statement or a vague concept, Aveilhé chose Harjo’s poem as the central inspiration behind “The Soul is a Wanderer,” encouraging the artists involved to consider not only the physical world of today, but how we carry that world into our spirits.
“The wandering soul can be seen as a metaphor for our seeking selves,” Aveilhé wrote, “and the artworks in this exhibition not only call our attention to pressing issues of our time, but also give us a few strategies for how best to navigate these passages from the past to the future.”
Harjo’s “A Map to the Next World (for Desiray Kierra Chee)” is a poem disguised as a metaphysical travel guide, as much a roadmap for a newborn entering our world from the previous one as for a dying human crossing over into the next.
Many of the exhibit’s showcased artists explore those themes of transition and the blurring lines between the natural world and the spiritual mind, but it’s the poem’s final lines that are clearly the key inspiration behind the wealth of works combining the radical with the traditional:
“Crucial to finding the way is this”
There is no beginning or end.
You must make your own map.”
Nature and Spirit
Taking their cues from that call to action, the artists showcased in “The Soul is a Wanderer” are attempting to make their own map between worlds with works that gesture or the invite a viewer’s eye or mind toward a new plane, sometimes tangible, sometimes imagined.
Conceptual sculptor Elspeth Schulze’s “The Sparing Ones,” for instance, comprises three large, circular columns made of hanging blue threads, inviting the viewer to consider a journey upward rather than forward.
Mixed-media artist Molly Kaderka brings her ongoing, site-specific “Ferrous Form” series to the exhibition (feature photo) in the form of two massive rings of what look to be earth and soil encircling dark holes suggesting something unknowable and infinite beyond.
Pieces throughout are created using stones and soil samples collected in the wild, linking the minimalist works directly to the land, or stark, black-and-white photography hung like antique maps showing that all paths lead to the increasingly barren landscape we’ve created here.
Focus
A number of video installations are also included throughout “The Soul is a Wanderer,” including a brand new, purpose-made short film from breakout Oklahoman filmmaker Sterlin Harjo centering on Joy Harjo herself reading and reciting “A Map to the Next World.”
With a filmography of works exploring modern Indigenous life and its challenging connections to the spiritual world, Sterlin’s sensibilities were already a perfect fit for this exhibition, and for his contributions to the state’s creative world, he was named as the recipient of this year’s ArtNow Focus Award.
“Native art has been shackled to history by a false vision of what Native people are through the settler gaze of our current reality,” Sterlin said in a statement accompanying his video in the exhibit. “We are diverse, we are dark, we are beautiful; and so is our artwork.”
Opening Night
As always, the ArtNow exhibition will see a grand opening night celebratory fundraiser event at the museum space on Thursday, June 22nd, featuring food, drinks, performances, and exclusive presentations by the showcasing artists themselves.
“It’s the biggest fundraiser of the year for us, really just trying to keep art accessible,” said Contemporary’s Director of Communications Lori Brooks. “And then after the fundraiser, it’ll all be free and open to the public like usual.”
“ArtNow: The Soul is a Wanderer” opens with a ticketed gala fundraising event Thursday, June 22nd before opening for free to the public the next day and running through January of next year.
For tickets to the event, or for museum hours or more information, visit oklahomacontemporary.org.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
