A&E

The Barrick Museum’s ‘I Am Here’ lets the artists speak for themselves

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“Bitter Earth” by Carla Jay Harris and Dr. Brenda E. Stevenson
Photo: Christopher DeVargas

The new exhibition in the East Gallery of UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is vastly different from nearly every other art exhibit you’ve seen.

Fabric handkerchiefs with oil-based face paint by Heidi Rider

Walking into I Am Here, it might at first be difficult to spot what makes it unique. As with many shows, the room is filled with art and sculpture by a variety of talented national and Las Vegas-based artists. But look closely at the little signs accompanying each piece, and you’ll see something unusual. Rather than the standard write-up—generally a description of the work written by a gallerist or curator—the art in I Am Here features the artists’ own words.

For example, Chase R. McCurdy’s black and white photograph of a sparkler, an American flag and a block tower (“Don’t Say I Didn’t WARN You…,” 2018) could be a patriotic still life. But the image is transformed by his words: “It’s a reflection in the work of my contending with the everyday realities of this world. So, there are those … times when it feels as though things are about to come down.” Rather than Fourth of July celebrations, the sparkler could represent an implosion of the American Dream.

The artists’ quotes enhance the show’s stated goal: “Taking its cues from a text-based artwork by the visual storyteller Ashley Hairston Doughty, I Am Here invites us to think about what it means to use art as a vehicle for personal narratives,” the show’s description reads. “What stories do artists choose to tell about themselves, and who is invited to talk?”

How better to know what artists would say than to share their own words? The idea is so obviously perfect, it’s a wonder it’s not common practice.

Work by Claudia DeMonte

The series of cartoonish face prints by visual and performing artist Heidi Rider are a delightful and discomfiting example of art as personal memoir. Rider “started working on [her] face” after catching COVID and becoming too weak to draw standing up. Instead, she would don clown makeup, do a photo shoot in character and then press her made-up face into a handkerchief, preserving it as a sort of clown death-mask.

She writes, “This is an emotion-based practice that allows me to process whatever I’m feeling. In a creative way. And then wash it off. And send it down the drain.” The titles of her faces reveal a radical vulnerability: “Tell me I’m pretty,” “U used 2 want me,” “F*ck this sh*t,” and “2020.”

As for who has been invited to talk, the team at the Barrick Museum, led by Executive Director Alisha Kerlin, put together a list of vital artists, whose work is either on loan or in the museum’s permanent collection. They include Catherine Angel, Tomoko Daido, Claudia DeMonte, Justin Favela, Carla Jay Harris, Brent Holmes, Krystal Ramirez, Lance L. Smith, Dr. Brenda E. Stevenson and Mikayla Whitmore.

The installation by the late, great Cuban-born American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres is a show highlight. The 1991 work “Untitled (L.A.)” consists of 50 pounds of wrapped green candies piled on the floor. The weight of the candy represents how much Gonzalez-Torres’ partner weighed at the time, as he was dying of AIDS.

Taken from a 1993 interview, Felix-Torres’ quote reads: “Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”

On the other end of the spectrum is Jay Sarno. The late creator of Caesars Palace and Circus Circus is not known to be an artist, but his concrete “Sarno Block” says otherwise. The playful mid-mod architectural piece was used in his iconic Las Vegas building facades. Sarno’s quote is hilariously self-aware: “In your opinion, do I look like any designer you ever met? I would rather hang up by my thumbs!”

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