State Of The World

H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City

February 11 - March 18, 2017

Curator : Raechell Smith

 

Vito Acconci, Sonya Clark, Edith Dekyndt, Mounir Fatmi, Komar & Melamid, Pedro Lasch, Lucy + Jorge Orta, Georgia Papageorge, Mike Sinclair, Allison Smith, James Woodfill, and Yara Said for The Refugee Nation

State of the World presents work by 14 artists whose projects invoke and explore the symbolic power of the flag as a means to understand and question the power structures they represent and, at times, create imaginative new proposals for alliances and allegiances.

Employing artistic strategies including abstraction, representation, and performance, these artists investigate ideas relating to identity, alienation, nationalism, citizenship, signaling, and agency as they confront issues pertinent to global culture today and respond to social and political stress and unrest of our time.

State of the World offers a rich and complex story of the flag as a potent symbol and a marker of time, place, belief, union, and difference. While reminding us that shifts in larger systems often create turbulence, rifts, and possibilities for change, the artists invite us to think carefully about how we experience a sense of belonging, negotiate allegiances, and how we proclaim ourselves and our connectedness to the world around us.

 

State of the World is organized by Raechell Smith, Director, and Jennifer Baker, Assistant Curator.

 

Kansas City, February 2017