Word on the Street

Group Exhibition

Exhibition: Jan 9 – Dec 27, 2020


Opening Reception: Thursday, January 8 from 6 – 8pm

Word on the Street at Artpace in San Antonio marks the first exhibition of the banners outside of its premier and subsequent presentations in New York. This exhibition at Artpace seeks to continue articulating, supporting, and empowering positive responses to the ever-changing social and political landscape as the country moves into the 2020 election cycle.

As part of the Word on the Street exhibition, House of Trees collaborated with San Antonio-based poet Naomi Shihab Nye to create a series of banner flags titled I PLEDGE. I PLEDGE was originally exhibited at New York University’s Kimmel Gallery in January 2018. The project continues to remain relevant in January 2019 amidst waves of xenophobia such as the proposed border wall, the continuing headlines of sexual harassment, and the dismantling of environmental regulations. I PLEDGE is a call to fight for change that is inclusive, empowering and humane.

In 2018 Word on the Street was presented in Times Square, The Watermill Center, Guggenheim Museum NY, the Kimmel Center at NYU, Socrates Sculpture Park NY, and the PEN America World Voices Festival.

Word on the Street was originally produced by House of Trees and the Watermill Center NY. Funding for Word on the Street at Artpace was provided by Guillermo Nicolas & Jim Foster.

Artists

Wangechi Mutu

Brooklyn, New York, USA

Kenyan-born Wangechi Mutu combines fashion magazine imagery and ink to create elegantly grotesque collages of the female body. Surreal and distinctive, the works at once reference ethnology, war, and portrayals of the female figure in mass media. Realized both on Mylar paper and directly on the wall, Mutu’s seductive hybrids—swan necks, talons for feet, distended bellies, mechanical appendages—use beauty to smuggle in the politics of violence and mutilation.
In the 1990s Mutu explored stereotypes of femininity and her African heritage through performative works. Since then she has primarily made drawings. That’s my death mask you’re wearing (2004) is emblematic of the collages—kaleidoscopic pools of reds and browns form a lithe female framed by tufts of savannah grass. The vamping body and magazine cutout eyes and lips imply glamour, yet swirls of ink create the impression of skin grafts. A missing arm, protruding prostheses, raw face, and heavy diamond earring support a darker narrative about the bloody effects of conflicts in Africa waged over scarce resources controlled by the West. Ever-sensuous, Mutu’s drawings are powerful critiques of contemporary media and cultural genocide.
Wangechi Mutu received her MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT in 2000. Solo shows include Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, CA and Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning, Queens, NY, both in 2003. Group exhibitions in 2004 include Fight or Flight, Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York, NY; Pin-up, Tate Modern, London, England; and Figuratively, The Studio Museum, Harlem, NY. The artist lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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A.M. Homes

New York, New York, USA

A.M. Homes, an internationally-acclaimed author and the 2013 Women’s Prize Award For Fiction/Orange Prize. She teaches in the creative writing program at Princeton University.

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Amy Khoshbin

Brooklyn, New York, USA

Amy Khoshbin is a Brooklyn-based artist, rapper, and politician. She has shown at venues such as The Whitney Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Times Square Arts, The High Line, Leila Heller Gallery, Socrates Sculpture Park, VOLTA NY, and PULSE Art Fair.

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Anne Carson

Toronto, Canada


Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator of Ancient Greek and professor of Classics. She was a 1998 Guggenheim Fellow, 2000 MacArthur Fellow, and has also won a Lannan Literary Award. Carson has published over twenty books, most of which blend the forms of poetry, essay, prose, criticism, translation, dramatic dialogue, fiction, and non-fiction.

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Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems


Carrie Mae Weems is an American artist working in photography, text, fabric, audio, digital images, installation, and video. Weems has received numerous honors, including the Prix de Roma, The Alpert, The Tiffany Award. In 2013 Weems received the MacArthur “Genius” grant and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

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House of Trees

San Antonio, Texas, USA


House of Trees is a family-run arts collective producing high-visibility publicly engaged projects. Located in San Antonio and New York City, its mission is one of collaboration centered on arts and politics. House of Trees has mounted projects nationally and internationally with venues including the Guggenheim Museum, Times Square Arts and the Watermill Center.

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Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and performance art and has toured the US and internationally with shows ranging from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events.

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Jenny Holzer

New York, New York, USA

Jenny Holzer is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in New York. In addition to winning the Golden Lion for her work at the 1990 Venice Biennale, Holzer has received other prestigious awards, including the Berlin Prize fellowship (2000); the Order of the Arts and Letters diploma of Chevalier from the French government (2002) and the Barnard Medal of Distinction (2011). In 2010, Holzer received the Distinguished Women in the Arts Award from MOCA, Los Angeles.

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Tania Bruguera

Havana, Cuba

Tania Bruguera is a Cuban installation and performance artist. Bruguera launched an Immigrant Respect Awareness Campaign and an international day of actions on Dec 18, 2011 which the UN designated International Migrants Day. In 2016 she launched INSTAR (Institute of Artivism Hannah Arendt), which creates a place where people with different political views can come together to build a better society.

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Naomi Shihab Nye

San Antonio, Texas, USA


Naomi Shihab Nye, based in San Antonio Texas, is the author of numerous books of poems. Nye’s honors include awards from the International Poetry Forum, the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. Naomi has been a Lannan, Guggenheim and Witter Bynner Fellow.

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