We Wear the Mask at the Dorsky Museum
We Wear the Mask: Race and Representation in the Dorsky Museum Permanent Collection, curated by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, closes on Sunday, November 22. It’s a must-see show and a timely example of an institution looking inwards to explore depictions of race within its own collection. Superville Sovak was invited by Dorsky Museum curator Anna Conlan to curate the exhibition by selecting work from the 6,000+ objects in the museum’s permanent collection. The resulting small but expertly curated show presents a varied range of work from ancient Egypt to the present day. Superville Sovak’s clever pairings of objects and images address the contradictions inherent in representations of race and in American culture as a whole. In addition, the museum’s wall labels, written by Superville Sovak, give the viewer access to the thought process and emotions behind his selections. We Wear the Mask takes its title from a poem of the same name by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
I spoke with Superville Sovak about his experience curating the Dorsky exhibition and how it relates to his own artistic practice. His work over the years has often focused on race, including the recent a-Historical Landscape series that merges Hudson River School landscape engravings with 19th century anti-slavery narratives. Learn more about Superville Sovak’s work at supervillesovak.com and on Instagram @supersovak.
Art Valley: How did the Dorsky exhibition come about? Was it always focused on the museum’s collection?
Jean-Marc Superville Sovak: While many art institutions were pledging support for the surging movement for racial justice after the very public murder of George Floyd, Anna Conlan, Curator and Exhibitions Manager at the Dorsky, reached out to me to ask whether I’d be interested in this idea of curating a show on race and representation using the museum’s collection. Anna knew my work from the a-Historical Landscape series of prints I’d made that remix Hudson River School landscapes with 19th century anti-slavery narratives. From the beginning, the show was meant to be a very deliberate and concrete action beyond changing the museum’s website banner to let students of color at SUNY New Paltz know that they were being seen and heard.
AV: What was the process of sorting through the museum’s collection like for you? Was it difficult to find work by Black artists?
JMSS: I jumped at the idea knowing that this would be a challenge not only for myself (this is my first time curating), but also a challenge for the institution, which, for the first time, was addressing themes directed at an audience of color when, like most museums, it has never had decisions made for it by people of color. It’s this relationship of power as defined by race that became central to the way I approached the collection, more than any single work by an individual artist. That said, the electronic database for the collections was really clunky and I was thrilled to find work by Henry Bannarn, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Richard Howard Hunt since there was no way of directly entering “Black artist” into the search function and getting any good results. Entering search terms like “cotton,” “Harlem” and “civil rights” ended up being much more productive.
AV: What were the biggest surprises in the collection?
JMSS: After finding bunch of items in the collections database, the museum Director Wayne Lempka would pull what I’d requested and there was always the shock of seeing the artwork in person. I imagine it’s a bit like online dating. I learned a lot about what I was projecting onto the work and I started to see patterns in my selections, which is how the whole strategy of pairing the artworks into came about. I loved playing with juxtapositions; What would this Goya print have to say to this portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat? There’s that dating analogy again. But the biggest surprise came from being able to handle some the objects themselves; feeling the sheer weight of the Deangle mask from Côte D’Ivoire in my hands was especially meaningful and such a rare privilege. I’ve moved a lot of art working as an art preparator but somehow this wasn’t the same.
AV: Do you agree with the recent decisions of some museums to sell high-value works from white artists to purchase works that will add more diversity to their collections?
JMSS: I’m outraged at what museums like the Everson are doing under the guise of diversifying their collection, especially when there isn’t even an attempt to hide the additional laundry list of items they would like to address (such as budget shortfalls) with the multi-million dollar sales of artwork that will instantly disappear out of public view into some storage facility in Switzerland. It’s hard not to be completely cynical about this if our public institutions are going to turn into shopping malls for ultra rich. Of course the pandemic has been disastrous for museums. Of course we need to have more works by under-represented artists. But we cannot cannibalize our way out of the problem. It’s like cutting down a tree to fix a hole in the floor!!
AV: What has been your experience with SUNY New Paltz students and faculty during the exhibition? Have you had any interaction with students?
JMSS: Like every venue that has had to open during a pandemic, the Dorsky didn’t have any kind of public reception for their recent exhibitions. I’ve only been able to get a sense of the reaction to the show thanks to the tours I’ve been leading for undergraduate (B.F.A.) and graduate (M.F.A.) classes. The overall reaction has been one of relief – the sense that yes, finally, we are talking about the messy stuff of race and (under) representation of marginalized voices in the biggest institutions. At one point, I brought up “code-switching” and asked if any of the students knew what it meant. The one African-American student raised her hand and said: “I’m code-switching right now,” which was really a nice moment of self awareness for everyone.
AV: One of my favorite parts of the show is the wall labels you wrote for each work. The text is written in the first person, which makes the curatorial process much more personal and alive. Can you tell me more about the text that you wrote?
JMSS: It’s funny you should point that out; the first person address was something Anna Conlan encouraged me to consider. I kept trying to distance myself as much as possible, quoting as many of my influences as possible to scaffold what I was thinking and I guess Anna saw the risk of losing something there. I didn’t want it to be about me and yet in the end I recognized that I hadn’t been chosen completely randomly for this job, so I might as well put myself in there. In a way it was harder to do, but ultimately it felt more liberating to make the kind of associations I wanted to make.
AV: The show is very much about you as an artist, as much as it is about you being a curator selecting works. I think viewers can feel your presence in the exhibition and the work you selected. How will this experience influence your own work?
JMSS: I’m glad you get a sense of both roles in the show. I’ve always been a little suspicious of curators who are also artists, but this was a case in which the two jobs didn’t feel that distinct. I’ve been used to a kind of “code-switching” when it comes to my art practice because I’m always sensitive to whatever audience my work is destined to address. The a-Historical Landscapes I’ve been working on are strategically a kind of curatorial practice as well, in the sense that I’ve been culling through and juxtaposing all kinds of historical material. I would love to curate again. I’m accepting We Wear the Mask show proposals for any museum!
Jean-Marc Superville Sovak is a multidisciplinary artist and teaching professional whose work deeply involves his life and the community around him. A graduate of Concordia University (BFA Studio Arts) and Bard College (MFA Film/Video), his art has been exhibited at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz and Unison Arts in New Paltz, NY; Kingston Sculpture Biennial, Kingston, NY; the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; Manifesta 8 European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Murcia, Spain; the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City; and Matteawan Gallery, Beacon, NY. His videos are distributed by Videographe, Inc., and have been screened worldwide. He is the illustrator of two award-winning novels: Deadly, and Into the Dangerous World. Superville Sovak is a Museum Educator and Guide at the Dia Art Foundation, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, and has been a Visiting Artist/Lecturer at SUNY New Paltz, Pratt Institute, and Bard College, among numerous schools and universities.
We Wear the Mask: Race and Representation in the Dorsky Museum Permanent Collection
Curated by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak
September 12 – November 22, 2020
Seminar Room Gallery
newpaltz.edu
