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SEEK SHELTER EXHIBITION STATEMENT On view through Januaray 13, 2007 at The Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Adrienne Outlaw's Seek Shelter show addresses humanity’s need to seek physical and psychological shelter in a modern world. It consists of three series of works. Shelter is a room-sized, empty steel cage juxtaposed with its twin, which is pierced entirely with nails. Vessels is a shimmering wall filled with paper scrolls containing people’s private thoughts. The Hunt installation consists of two-dozen life-sized, hanging cocoons. Referencing African nail fetishes, Shelter is pierced with 1.2 million small, silver nails. Traditionally, fetishes gained power as people grew to believe in them. Similarly to the fetishes, Shelter appears menacing, but like the gothic church or rib cage it resembles, the work is intended as a powerful, protective space that visitors may physically enter. More than 300 people have participated in this work.
Reminiscent of memorials, prayer and peace walls around the world, Vessels is a shimmering, wall-hung work comprised of 288 individually made brass-mesh boxes and baskets. Drawing upon many methods of religious and cultural expressions, the wall holds hundreds of colorful, hand-made paper scrolls containing people’s private thoughts. With each new installation, visitors are invited to add to the wall and witness the collective power of their voice through the slow accretion of papers. 700 people helped realize Vessels. Thousands more are expected to participate as the show travels.
As with Shelter and Vessels, The Hunt celebrates society’s ability for transformation both in the artwork and in the creative process. Dozens of glistening, hanging cocoons evoke images of a meat locker and ideas of metamorphosis. Like butterflies shedding their pupas, those who helped create this piece were transformed as they symbolically shed their physical and psychological skin to make the work.
In addition to the physical elegance and psychological resonance of the show, Seek Shelter is also about how an artist/artwork may impact society. Thousands of people are participating both in the show’s physical creation and in a continued dialogue about seeking shelter. During each work session, participants consider how to build communities better equipped to deal with difficulties such as socio-economic disparity; devastating natural world events; and the challenge of building healthy emotional and physical shelters in a modern world. In addition to producing an exhibition catalogue, AMUM is developing educational materials including age-appropriate classroom curricula and “Idea" cards to elicit visitor response and encourage similar dialogue.
The internationally-exhibited artist Adrienne Outlaw explores the often conflicting dialog among science, nature and religion. Exploring a world she sees as beautiful yet dangerous, nourishing yet cruel, Outlaw considers the contradictions that develop as people grapple to balance the dichotomy between emotional and intellectual thought in an increasingly technological world. Outlaw intends the work in the Seek Shelter show to be both unsettling and contradictory. Her statement reads, “We are placing greater demands on what technology can provide without thoughtfully considering the consequences. As scientific achievement surpasses our emotional-processing abilities, confusion occurs. We seem to choose psychological comfort over intellectual honesty. We tend to admire beauty, promote escape and scorn critical thought. Rather than struggle with the truth, we blindly seek salvation and hate what we don’t understand. Is the idea of shelter one that provides solace and refuge or is it a place from which we escape? It is my hope that this work provides a platform for dialogue about our future direction.”
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