Your Feast Has Ended
Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, Nicholas Galanin, and Nep Sidhu
June 14–September 14, 2014
Frye Art Museum
704 Terry Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
USA
www.fryemuseum.org
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Your Feast Has Ended offers a visual cogitation exploring continuum, ritual, identity, and adornment.
The artists in the exhibition–Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, Nicholas Galanin, and Nep Sidhu–work with the ancient and sacred in unison with the new and revised, bound by the belief that a people without myth and a society that fails to look upon itself honestly are destined to the same fate. The artists practice this belief through cross-disciplinary approaches to storytelling and employ time-honored and new techniques to create work that ranges from fine art, music, and performance, to film, graphic design, jewelry, and apparel.
Their work often takes the form of searing social commentary. Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes describes his work from the “Pelt” series Wait? Wait! Don’t Shoot! (An Incantation for Jazz and Trayvon), 2013–14, as a reflection on fetish, big-game hunting, the exhaustive penchant for trophy, Florida’s stand-your-ground law, and America’s relentless assault on young black men.
Nicholas Galanin’s taxidermy sculpture of a wolf, Inert, 2009, examines how “mainstream society often looks at Indigenous or Native American art through a romantic lens, not allowing a culture like my Tlingit community room for creative sovereign growth. The back half of this piece is contained, a captured trophy or rug to bring into the home, while the front continues to move. It is sad and the struggle is evident.”
Nep Sidhu’s “Confirmation” series of acrylic and ink on paper, chromed steel, sheet veneer marble, and brass is described by the artist as exploring the possibility that “a third space/feeling exists between architecture and the written word.” He refers to (Re) Confirmation A, 2014, as a “sculptural translation” of the lyrics of singer Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces into Kufic script.
Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes (b. 1977, Seattle) explores the resonance of genetic cultural memory through the mystical and the mundane. Nicholas Galanin (b. 1979, Sitka, Alaska) strikes a balance between the traditions of his heritage and an incisive contemporary approach to visually manifesting an idea. Nep Sidhu (b. 1978, London) is interested in the way that memory, social landscape, and stylistic interpretation can give way to myth, identity, and truth.
Your Feast Has Ended: Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, Nicholas Galanin, and Nep Sidhu is organized by the Frye Art Museum and curated by Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker and Scott Lawrimore. The exhibition is funded by the Frye Foundation with the generous support of Frye Art Museum members and donors. It is sponsored by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Seasonal support is provided by 4Culture and ArtsFund. Media sponsorship is provided by City Arts.
