The artist harnesses the Latin phrase’s suggestion of religious narrative with the ensuing idea of, in her words, “the incapacity of humankind to create structures of law, principles of morality, or hierarchies of government without a reliance on the imaginary.” 1ġ Tau Lewis, in conversation with the gallery, July 2022.īorn in Toronto, Tau Lewis is a self-taught artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Using the dictum “vox populi, vox Dei” as an expansive descriptor of humankind’s historical relationships to its own belief systems, Lewis’s exhibition at 52 Walker connects this secular democratic treatise with a world of her own creation in which faith, myth, and drama overlap. Revised and expanded the following year and retitled “The Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations Concerning the Rights, Power, and Prerogative of Kings and the Rights, Privileges, and Properties of the People,” this document is understood to be one of the formative writs of European democracy. Translated from Latin as “the voice of the people the voice of god,” the exhibition’s title, Vox Populi, Vox Dei, can be traced back to the fourteenth century but is primarily associated with the original name of a British Whig party tract from 1709. The sculptures are a convergence of our collective histories and the social imaginary.
VOX POPULI VOX DEI ARCHIVE
A piece of every sculpture from her archive is embedded into each new work, creating a genealogical tree rooted in our world by its familiar component parts. By using donated, damaged, or unwanted leather goods saving and reconstituting scraps from previous projects and working with an inheritance of nearly one hundred abandoned coats from a Long Island furrier, Lewis likewise preserves the essence of the previous lives of these materials she painstakingly stitches their histories into each mask. The figures, some of whom appear in other guises throughout her various bodies of work, populate Lewis’s domain with not only their presence and associated fables but also with what the artist terms their “material DNA,” the genetic thread that binds them together. Le Guin and angelology-the theological dogma concerning the study of angels-Lewis expands the narrative and world-building possibilities of her own characters in Vox Populi, Vox Dei. Inspired by the contemporary work of Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, such as his 1973 play The Bacchae of Euripides classical Greek and Roman mythology and drama science-fiction stories by the likes of Samuel R. Deriving concepts from eschatology, Vox Populi, Vox Dei puts forth a joyful declaration of being: taking the form of a stage on which to enact and actuate this ethereal sphere, the installation employs the apocalypse not as a vehicle for destruction but rather as a platform for transformation.
In creating the masks, Lewis develops their identities and narratives in an intermediary world that implicates our ancestral pasts, spiritual and cultural similitudes, and multiplanar existences. The monumental forms-which range from seven to over thirteen feet tall-will uphold a corporeal arena for those who move between temporal and heavenly realms.įollowing her presentation Divine Giants Tribunal at the 2022 Venice Biennale, Lewis continues to create anthropomorphic forms inspired by those in Yoruban mask dramas-ones which are spiritually activated by the wearer and the audience, and, by extension, their community. At the gallery, the artist will present a group of six new sculptures created from salvaged textiles and other found materials in a polygonal installation that will serve as a stage for an inaudible conversation. Employing various sculptural techniques, Lewis creates colorful, totemic forms that suggest mythical territories beyond our own. *Featured photo: Tau Lewis studio, 2022 © Tau Lewis Courtesy the artist and 52 Walker, New Yorkĥ2 Walker is pleased to announce its fifth exhibition, Vox Populi, Vox Dei, which will feature new work by New York-based artist Tau Lewis.
0 kommentar(er)
