Casey Kaplan
We congratulate Kevin Beasley on receiving the prestigious 28th Heinz Award for the Arts.
Working across sculpture, sound and performance, Kevin Beasley’s artworks are inspired by his personal experiences of grappling with history and are constructed with culturally relevant ephemera, materials, music and sounds that bear their stories. His sculptures layer these objects, preserved in resin, as “slabs” arranged as landscapes and painterly abstract works, clothing suspended in the form of absent figures and satellite dishes that alter the acoustics of the spaces they occupy. Sound, a powerful and consistent tool in Beasley’s practice, amplifies the physicality of his works, adding a tactile experience to his installations and performances. Their vibrations are felt in the body as much as their sources are seen and their sounds heard. These combined elements offer viewers a deeper way to contend with the stories within.
Beasley’s 2016 work, “Your face is/is not enough,” exemplified his ability to create conceptual works that blend the physicality of sculpture with sound and performance. Incorporating audio clips from riots and protests, the piece featured NATO-issued riot gas masks covered with feathers and items of clothing, which were worn by performers as they vocalized into megaphones strapped over their shoulders. The work was later included in the 2018 Liverpool Biennial and acquired by Tate.
“A View of a Landscape,” his 2018 solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, connected distinctly to his childhood home in Virginia, where, during a reunion, Beasley learned that his family had leased their land for growing cotton. The realization sparked research into the materials, history and impact of the cotton industry on his Black ancestors and led him to travel to Maplesville, Alabama, to purchase a 2,500-pound cotton gin motor that had been in operation during the pivotal events of the Civil Rights Movement. The resulting work, titled “A cotton gin motor” (2012-18), enclosed the restored engine in a soundproof vitrine. The hum of its operation was visually implied through the glass, while its actual roar was skillfully co-opted from the gallery and piped into a separate listening room. The exhibition also included three of Beasley’s slabs, each an 8’x10’ amalgamation of objects including Virginia-grown cotton, graduation caps, pinecones, du-rags and housedresses bought at a store in Harlem where his grandmother shopped. In 2023, a monograph and LP by the same title as the 2018 exhibition was released and chronicled Beasley’s career from 2011-20. In a show of the breadth of Beasley’s practice as well as his influences, the book includes photographs, poems, essays and contributions from collaborators, including Ralph Lemon (a previous Heinz Award winner).
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