Fall 2021 exhibitions

The Visual Arts Center at The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to announce its 2021 fall exhibition program. 

Carolina Caycedo and David de Rozas: The Blessings of the Mystery
Artists-in-residence, September 24–December 3, 2021

Expanding on ideas manifested in the multidisciplinary practice of Carolina Caycedo and David de Rozas, The Blessings of the Mystery examines themes of environmental activism, encounters between history and memory, Indigenous rights, and the formation and dissemination of knowledge. Central to the exhibition is The Teaching of the Hands (2020), a new film by Caycedo and de Rozas that recounts the complex histories of colonization, migration, and ecological precarity in West Texas from the perspective of Juan Mancias, Chairman of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. The exhibition also features Measuring the Immeasurable (2020), a site-responsive installation incorporating both historical and contemporary surveying tools and artifacts used to create parcels of land alongside a selection of objects culled from special collections at The University of Texas at Austin, including the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratories and the Billie L. Turner Plant Resources Center. Through the juxtaposition of original works and objects from UT Austin’s special collections, The Blessings of the Mystery articulates the complicated and layered histories, connections, and tensions present in West Texas.

Organized by Ballroom Marfa, The Blessings of the Mystery will travel to the Rubin Center at the University of Texas at El Paso in spring 2022 and to Ballroom Marfa in summer 2022.

Joey Fauerso: Wait for It
September 24–December 3, 2021

Working across a range of media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, and video, San Antonio-based artist Joey Fauerso engages with notions of domesticity, the body, gender, and identity. Her oeuvre consists of large-scale figurative paintings as well as complex and layered installations, akin to theatrical sets, that the artist outfits with painted canvases, props, and sculptural elements. Privileging the role of painting within her practice, Wait for It focuses on Fauerso’s ongoing engagement with figurative representation. Whether in motion or silent and still, Fauerso’s figures often appear expectant and sometimes even burdened, as if anticipating an event that will never happen; their gazes and poses are poignant metaphors for contemporary life, marked by time spent waiting. 

This exhibition is presented in association with the Feminist Art Coalition.

Madison Cooper: (Untitled) Fanon
September 24–December 3, 2021

“I sit down at the fire and I become aware of my uniform. I had not seen it. It is indeed ugly. I stop there, for who can tell me what beauty is?” —Frantz Fanon, The Fact of Blackness (1952)

Informed by ideas forwarded by Frantz Fanon in his influential text, The Fact of Blackness, artist Madison Cooper (UT Austin Studio Art BFA candidate, 2022) delves into questions about the definition of culture and the intricacies of race in her debut solo exhibition. Through printed photographs and projected images, she explores the web of identifying factors and experiences she uses to define her own Blackness. This new, deeply personal body of work serves as an act of self-reflection; an effort to comb through memories and consider signifiers that have impacted her sense of self while navigating life at a predominantly White university. Combining a series of self-portraits with images of family and friends, Cooper presents a visual assemblage of intimate moments and social performances that question what it means to be Black.

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