Artist honors Breonna Taylor in exhibit now on display at UNC’s Ackland Art Museum
The Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill is featuring a new exhibit called “holding space for nobility: a memorial for Breonna Taylor” by artist Shanequa Gay.
Taylor, 26, was fatally shot by police officers in her home in Louisville, Kentucky, in March. Taylor’s life and death became part of a national conversation about police brutality, racism and criminal justice reform.
Protesters in Raleigh, North Carolina and cities across America shouted her name along with George Floyd and other Black individuals killed by police this year.
“I would like to hold space for Breonna, for her spirit, for who she was as a human living and existing, as a woman, as a daughter, as a friend, as someone who was loved and is worthy of justice and being seen,” Gay said in her proposal about the piece.
The installation of Gay’s work, which is hosted in the museum’s mixed-use ART& room, can be viewed virtually and will be on display through July 4, 2021. The museum is currently closed but visitors can view the exhibit when it reopens.
“Gay’s piece has an urgency to it — as both a much-needed solemn space for remembering Breonna Taylor and a thought-provoking space for critical conversations about racial justice — so I’m glad we’re able to show it as soon as we can through digital means,” said Allison Portnow Lathrop, head of public programs at the museum.
The art installation
Using acrylics and oils, Gay illustrates The Devouts, which she describes as “fictional chimeras I have created, that are sometimes masked, colossal, with female bodices that are hued black and blue like water.”
In the ART& room, The Devouts are holding space for nobility, healing and memorial for Breonna, Gay said.
“The Devouts were created from the prayers of African-Ascendant women living in America who desire intercessors for their plight of repeated injustices,” Gay said, “where their pleas and cries have gone unheard, the Devouts hold space.”
She combines publicly shared photos of Taylor with deer antlers and zebra legs, which “draw from their animal spirit the ability to heal and empower,” she said.
“They are monumental in form and sprawled across the four walls, their faces are unmasked and all house images of Breonna as reflection and memory,” Gay said.
Black Tiara glassware sits beneath the most prominent figure on the wall, which hosts Breonna’s spirit and salt water as tears seeking to cleanse, reconcile and give balance to the emotional disorder and agitation, according to Gay.
“The water washes away the grief and the impurities of our failed justice system,” Gay said.
The work of Gay, an Atlanta native, has been featured in museums and art centers around the world.
“What I hope Gay’s installation brings is that same attention to close looking, to careful thought, and to honest dialogues about what we’re seeing in the world — it’s urgently needed and holding space for nobility has the power to affect real change in this way,” Lathrop said.
A virtual artist talk
The museum is also creating an opportunity for dialogue about the piece and the issues it highlights through a virtual conversation with Gay.
Gay and Lauren Turner, the assistant curator for the collection at Ackland, will discuss the work on Nov. 13 and invites the community to join in on the conversation.
When the museum is open, the space acts as a classroom, stage, auditorium and communal living room, Turner said.
This virtual talk provides an opportunity for people to see the art digitally and speak directly with Gay on Zoom, which could bring more voices to the conversation than in-person.
Turner said the virtual exhibit is important because artists continue to create and respond to the world, despite the pandemic. Their work calls attention to what’s happening and helps people process our world, she said.
“Offering a virtual experience emphasizes that humankind’s creative pursuits never cease,” Turner said, “and their value to our psyche never disappears, even if other aspects of our daily existence may seem to pause.”
The installation and related programming is funded by James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach.
This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 8:40 AM.
