Stories of self-love and survival: looking closely at Nakeya Brown’s exhibition at UICA
Dear Grand Rapids, true love is self-love.
While walking through the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (UICA)’s exhibition “Here + Now” earlier this month, I was struck by Nakeya Brown’s photograph “Satin Pillow.” It reminded me of “Untitled” (1991) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, in which a billboard of a black and white photograph of two used bed pillows, side by side, evoke the memory of his love for his partner, Ross. Both photographs describe a personal narrative unique to each artist that is often unseen — Brown’s work focuses on the fabric of a pillowcase that tends to a specific hair routine for African-American women, and the other focuses on the homosexual relationship of two men.
As an artist working with identity politics, I resonated a lot with Brown’s solo exhibition, curated by Exhibitions Curator Heather Duffy. While I do not personally know Brown, we share an anthropological approach to art marking through the inspecting, analyzing, grouping, and framing of objects and bodies with the medium of photography. These subjects composed within the four edges of the photograph begin as portraits of self, yet evolve into portraits of society. One artist’s story can become the story of many voices that do not have the agency of self-expression.
The exhibition is inviting with a strong palette of pinks, blues, yellows, and purples. There’s a kind of innocence I associate with that, like a box of crayons in a kindergarten classroom — an innocence of children at an age when their minds are shaped and influenced by anything and everything. I interpret Brown giving the viewer an education in hair, culture, and identity. By keeping the color scheme consistent throughout the exhibition, it acts as a backdrop for the primary subject of the work — a spectrum of brown skin and shiny, saturated black hair.
When I saw the photograph “Mo’ Body” (2015), I was immediately reminded of my relationship to my own black hair. I used to be blonde. I would bleach my hair yellow every month for about 10 years. When I would go to the hair store, I would see product packaging design that looked fairly boring, as if it were in desperate need of a design makeover. But the only thing in desperate need of a design makeover was me — a kind of longing to change my black hair to something “normal,” or something more aligned with a white person.
That idea of “normal” brings me back to the pillowcases. Why is it revolutionary for Brown to share an image of a pillowcase, or Gonzalez-Torres to share an image of two pillowcases? It is revolutionary because the culture in which these photographs are exhibited in is a white and heteronormative arena. Just look at the conversation that ignited after Adele’s Grammy win this past Sunday for Album of the Year: Adele’s own shock with Beyoncé’s loss triggered the internet to critically mourn another black narrative losing to a white story. Another example could be the 2006 Oscar win by “Crash” over the acclaimed Ang Lee-directed gay drama “Brokeback Mountain.” And this past weekend on Saturday Night Live, Melissa McCarthy’s Sean Spicer-character addressed this administration’s extreme vetting of immigrants by stating, “we know she’s okay because she’s blonde.”
If there were some common threads between Brown, Gonzalez-Torres, Beyoncé, and “Brokeback Mountain,” it would be stories of love and survival. And not just any kind of love, but self-love — the kind of love we hold for our personal selves that no one can take from us.
We live in a society that demands too much from marginalized bodies. By repeating the body throughout her exhibition, Brown has created a magical arena filled with her rules, her aesthetic, and a rich culture that cannot — and will not—be ignored.
The exhibit “Here + Now” is on view through March 31 at UICA (2 Fulton West). The galleries are open to the public Tues-Sat 12–9 and Sundays 12–6. Admission is free to members and $5 for non-members.
