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Climate Changing: Artists in the news

Melissa Starker, Creative Content & PR Manager

Jul 21, 2021

Baseera Khan's artwork in the exhibition Climate Changing

The talents featured in Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment use their work to prod at some of the most pressing challenges facing the modern world, and their efforts haven’t slowed over the six months that the exhibition has been on view.

As we count down to the show’s August 15 closing, we’ll continue to share new insights from these artists, such as an original essay by Dave Hullfish Bailey coming to this blog on Tuesday and a program on Verge.FM with Demian DinéYazhi’ streaming Sunday, August 8 from 6 to 7 PM ET. (In related news, on Thursday, August 5, we’ll host the virtual program Ways Forward: New Institutional Paradigms and Practices, in which a panel of esteemed arts professionals will discuss efforts to expand access and inclusion.)

These artists and other Climate Changing contributors have also been making news around the world. Whether you’ve already explored the show, you’re planning to see it for the first time in the days ahead, or you’re considering a return visit for another look (understandable—there’s a lot to absorb), we hope you’ll enjoy catching up with some of their stories below.

Installation view of the Wexner Center for the Arts exhibition Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment

Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured from left to right: Sable Elyse Smith, Landscape II, 2017; Carolyn Lazard, Pain Scale, 2019; Sable Elyse Smith, Coloring Book 56, 2020.

Image description: Three artworks hung on a long gallery wall, the furthest away, to the left, is a neon sculpture with white text that is illegible from afar and a yellow line below. Next, a series of six identical brown smiley face decals, equally spaced in a line. Two white columns are near the center for the image, and the framed work beyond depicts two coloring book pages that are blown-up, measuring about 5 foot tall. The frames are staggered so the drawing on the left is hung about 8 inches lower than that on the right. A globe runs across these two pages at the center of the spread. On the left page is the figure of a judge, a policeman, and a child, on the right there is a doctor, a man in overalls, and another child. The figures are colored in with red, blue, yellow, green, and cream marks that do not follow the lines of the forms, and most faces except for that of the man in the overalls are obscured. Below them, text reads “IF WE ALL WORK TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.”

Abraham Cruzvillegas’s work Agua Dulce at The Bass Museum in Miami was deemed one of “the world’s most awesome outdoor installations”.
Demian Din´Yazhi’ has been finishing their new book We Left Them Nothing and was recently featured in this T Magazine profile of Queer Indigenous artists.
Torkwase Dyson has joined artists such as Mark Bradford and Theaster Gates on a project to reflect the cultural legacy of the Great Migration commissioned by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Mississippi Museum of Art.
Jibade-Khalil Huffman connected with curator and writer Elisa Linn for an in-depth interview for June’s BOMB Magazine.
Baseera Khan was called out by Amy Sillman in a piece filled with artists’ recommendations on other artists to watch. Khan also made their West Coast solo debut this spring, and they created a massive new mural in Brooklyn; it’s a precursor to the artist’s first major solo exhibition, coming this fall to the Brooklyn Museum.
Pope.L is the subject this week of a new profile in The Guardian. He also recently released a book of his writings, My Kingdom for a Title.
Carolyn Lazard was interviewed by MoMA Magazine about their 2018 video, Crip Time, which captures one example of the everyday challenges faced by those with physical disabilities. You can watch the short work here, courtesy of the artist and Artforum.
The video work When Proust Catches the Glare by Raqs Media Collective is now streaming as part of the online project You Are the Prototype, “a new way of seeing screen culture beyond cinemas and galleries.”
Related Tactics has participated in the San Francisco-area public art project Dear America. Organized by artist Christy Chan, the anti-hate initiative projects works by Asian-American artists onto high-rises throughout the region.
Jacolby Satterwhite is working with FRONT International and the Cleveland Clinic on a new public artwork to debut as part of FRONT’s 2022 edition. He also has a new solo show, Spirits Roaming the Earth, opening next month at Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University.
Sable Elyse Smith debuted a new, untitled video work in May, commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami. You can see it here.
Constantina Zavitsanos is a new mentor for the upcoming cycle of Queer|Art|Mentorship, a year-long creative and professional development program that connects established makers with early-career LGBTQ+ artists from around the country. Zavitsanos is also a featured part of Care in End Times, a project that explores strategies of care in relation to the work of multidisciplinary artist and activist Johanna Hedva.

Top of page: Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured: Baseera Khan, Column 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 2019; background series I Arrive in Place with a High Level of Psychic Distress, 2020.

Image description: A gallery with white walls and granite tile floors. There are five sculptures in the foreground: three are stacked atop each other; one is leaned on a rectangular column; and one is resting flat on the floor. Each section is about 6 feet in diameter. They are round, flat, dissected sections that represent a Corinthian column. The outer edges of the column sections are wrapped in collaged, multicolored silk rugs; they each have pink foam cores with a central orange resin disc. Behind the sculptures are five photo collages of limbs and isolated body parts against a black background and covered by tapestries and rugs. Multicolored angular plexiglass pieces float above the photos in the frames.