FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.- The
NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale began the presentation of Lux et Veritas last April 2, 2022, and will be ending it on January 8, 2023. Lux et Veritas explores a transformative period in contemporary art by focusing on a generation of artists of color who attended Yale School of Art for graduate studies between 2000 and 2010.
The exhibition’s title alludes to Yale University’s motto, Lux et Veritas, which translates from Latin to “Light and Truth.” In the context of this exhibition, the title references how these artists think about their practice and the institutions they worked within and sought to build. As with similar programs, Yale School of Art had not been historically diverse, which spurred these art students to form affiliations across the departments of painting, graphic design, sculpture, photography and art history. They filled gaps in the school’s curriculum, counteracted the lack of diversity among the faculty by inviting artists, curators and writers of color as advisors and guest speakers, developing an interdisciplinary forum, publishing art journals, organizing exhibitions and documenting their experiences in video and photography. The relationships they formed at school evolved into communities that networked and provided essential support and feedback for one another, often passing on these efforts beyond graduate study. Their reevaluation of the western art canon, commitment to the method and practice of teaching has contributed to a greater recognition of artists of color, challenged stereotypes and enriched the overall shared spaces of learning and thinking about art and the art praxis.
Among the artists included are: Mike Cloud, William Cordova, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Abigail DeVille, Torkwase Dyson, John Espinosa, Luis Gispert, Rashawn Griffin, Leslie Hewitt, Loren Holland, Jamerry Kim, Eric N. Mack, Wardell Milan, Wangechi Mutu, Mamiko Otsubo, Ronny Quevedo, Mickalene Thomas, Anna Tsouhlarakis, Shoshanna Weinberger and Kehinde Wiley. The exhibition brings together these artists’ distinct post-graduate work and highlights their philosophical and idiosyncratic approaches that both challenged and reimagined modern and contemporary art. It also includes archival photographs and videos that document these artists’ student experiences.
The exhibition provides a public forum in which to address the directions these artists took based on the explorations that began in graduate school and were instilled thereafter in their practice. The exhibition will be augmented with a catalog, oral histories, artist talks, performances and workshops with art students. The exhibition is curated by Bonnie Clearwater, Director and Chief Curator, NSU Art Museum. Mike Cloud (Yale, MFA 2003), William Cordova (Yale, MFA 2004), Leslie Hewitt (Yale, MFA 2004) and Irene V. Small, Associate Professor, Contemporary Art & Criticism, Princeton University (Yale, Ph.D. 2008) are advisors on the exhibition.
Founded in 1958, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is a premier destination for exhibitions and programs encompassing many facets of civilization’s visual history. Located midway between Miami and Palm Beach in downtown Fort Lauderdale’s arts and entertainment district, the Museum’s 83,000 square - foot building, which opened in 1986, was designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes and contains over 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, the 256 -seat Horvitz auditorium, a museum store and café. In 2008, the Museum became part of Nova Southeastern University (NSU), one of the largest private research universities in the United States. NSU Art Museum is known for its significant collection of Latin American art, contemporary art with an emphasis on art by Black, Latinx and women artists, African art that spans the 19th to the 21st-century, as well as works by American artist William Glackens, and the European Cobra group of artists. Two scholarly research centers complement the collections: The Dr. Stanley and Pearl Goodman Latin American Art Study Center and the William J. Glackens Study Center.
