Title: Cauleen Smith
Description: Through films, objects, and installation, Cauleen Smith (born 1967) offers an emotional axis by which to navigate four distinct universes: Alice Coltrane and her Sai Anantam ashram; a 1966 photo shoot by Bill Ray at Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in Los Angeles; Noah Purifoy and his desert assemblages in Joshua Tree; and black spiritualist Rebecca Cox Jackson and her Shaker community in 19th-century Philadelphia. These locations, while not technically utopian societies, embody sites of historical speculation and radical generosity between artist and community. In reimagining a future through this mix, Smith casts a world that is black, feminist, spiritual and unabashedly alive. This volume, wrapped in a frosted and foil-stamped dust jacket, contains full-color photographs of the multi-room installation and provides further insight into Smith's creative process and myriad influences through two interviews and a manifesto written by the artist.
Subjects: Installations (Art), African American women artists, University of Pennsylvania. Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Exhibitions, Motion picture producers and directors, Modern Art, Mixed media (Art), Video art, Conceptual art, Race in art, Black people in art, Black people, Race identity, Politics in art, Blacks, Blacks in art