VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Glassell School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents the exhibition There is no archive in which nothing gets lost. Curated by Core Critical Studies Fellow Sally Frater. On view September 7 – November 25, 2012. Opening Reception Friday, September 7, 6pm-8pm.

Featuring works in video by Sonia Boyce in collaboration with Ain Bailey, Wangechi Mutu and Lorna Simpson, There is no archive in which nothing gets lost seeks to examine notions of “place” as explored through the proposed works depictions of architecture, geographic locations and memory.

The works in question explore the ways in which our relationships to environments, whether constructed or natural, are often predicated on the traces of past events that have become embedded in specific sites and how these historical traces shape not only our behavior but ultimately how we view ourselves, and others, in relation to them.

Negotiating the complicated terrain of colonization, geographical, cultural, spatial boundaries and history, these works simultaneously provide critically engaged commentary on the politics and poetics of notions of place while subtly drawing attention to the role that video and film media plays in informing our understanding of the former.

At a time in which the internet has served as a catalyst in the compression and flattening of history and experience, There is no archive in which nothing gets lost puts forth the proposition of the selected videos as heterotopic archives in which the intersection of site, history and performative gesture within each respective work collectively disrupts the space of representation.

Pictured: Wangechi Mutu "Cutting", Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects & Sikkema Jenkins & Co.