Devin Troy Strother (1986) until February 14, 2015 in Marlborough Gallery Chelsea, NYC.
I got a Kelley Walker all over my MJ’s air walker 2, 2014
Strother about Strother:
Installation View, 2015.
“I don’t want to talk about black injustice. I don’t even really want to talk about being black. But I’m going to have to talk about it. It’s like this weird escapist thing where you try to make work that’s not about identity, but making work that’s not about identity is also about identity. So yeah, you can’t win.”
“I would want to try and articulate it without using the word black, but I don’t think that’s possible. I would have to talk about race because it’s definitely something that’s apparent in the work, even if I don’t want it to be about race. This is always a hard question because I don’t want to say black and I’m trying to articulate it without talking about identity. I don’t want to talk about identity but it’s definitely about identity. It’s so much about identity.”
Installation View, 2015.
“I’m talking about what it’s like to make work as a young black artist now, and be born in a post-post-post racial society. To come up being the only black kid in school, the only cool kid because I was the only black guy. Like Gerald from Hey Arnold! , you know? It’s about living in that type of experience. I didn’t have a negative experience being black so I make work that’s… I’d say it’s just American.”
Please Mr. DJ, 2010.
“It’s super personal, though not as personal as past work where I was literally referencing specific moments in my life. It’s really all the things I try not to say it is. But this is kind of what keeps me making work. I’m always trying to articulate this ineffable thing I’m thinking about and living through. Every show is a failed show in a way—you never get it right.”
(quotes from interview Zack Sokol had in VICE, January 12, 2015)
