Image courtesy of the artist
From June 2-29, New City Arts presents loss.nothing.memorial, an exhibition of work by Ashon Crawley.
loss.nothing.memorial. is an immersive sound and video installation, honoring the lives of musicians, singers, and choir directors from the Black Church tradition that died of AIDS complications between 1980-2005. Including songs, sermons, radio and video, Ashon Crawley wants visitors to consider and reckon with the past that is still present with us.
New City Arts' Welcome Gallery
114 3rd St. NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902
First Fridays
June from 5-7PM; Artist talk and reading from 7-7:30PM.
Free and open to the public. All ages welcome.
Gallery Hours
Wednesday-Saturday from 10AM-5PM
Covid-19 Visitor Policy
Please do not come to Welcome Gallery if you have been exposed to COVID-19, are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, or have been advised to isolate or quarantine.
Exhibition Statement (courtesy of the artist)
loss.nothing.memorial attempts to confront religious and spiritual violence and how it took shape in the 1980s thru the 2000s, targeting blackqueer people with musicians, singers and choir directors as the primary targets of that violence. The queerness of black gospel music is often discussed as a stereotype, and thus circulates as unverifiable. And the sound of the black church changed because of theological convictions, the law and the public health crisis of HIV/AIDs in the 80s and 90s. loss.nothing.memorial creates multisensory immersive environments that both honor the density of sonic material musicians that have died provided while also allowing the sonic material to manifest in a visual register. With sound and video, displayed are the various ways grief can be experienced–ephemeral, atmospheric, weighty.
About the Artist (courtesy of the artist)
Ashon Crawley is professor of Religious Studies and African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. He is author of Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility and The Lonely Letters. He was a Yaddo fellow, a MacDowell interdisciplinary arts fellow, and a New City Arts Initiative Fellow. All his work is about otherwise possibility.
This exhibition is made possible with support from IDEA Minds Consulting, Bama Works Fund of Dave Matthews Band at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, and the Lisa Draine.
