Identity Politics (2022 A.I.R. Currents)

Curated by Christian Camacho-Light & Roxana Fabius, A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

A.I.R. Gallery’s 7th edition of CURRENTS was curated by A.I.R. Executive Director Roxana Fabius and Director of Exhibitions and Fellowship Christian Camacho-Light.

Coinciding with the 45th anniversary of the Combahee River Collective Statement, this exhibition looked to the origins of identity politics in order to consider the concept’s continued relevance and contemporary manifestations. In their 1977 statement—one of the most significant texts of the twentieth century and a pillar of Black feminist theory and practice—the Combahee River Collective introduced identity politics as a cogent political analysis that emphasizes personal experience and multi-focal coalition building as wellsprings of revolutionary action. For the Combahee River Collective, identity politics allowed for the recognition that all forms of oppression are interconnected and thus cannot be fought in isolation. While importantly informed by who you are, identity politics poses the more essential question of what you might do with others.

Nearly half a century later, the value of identity politics is widely debated in the public sphere, with mainstream and alternative media alike wading into a perceived fissure in contemporary political discourse: that between so-called “identity politics of division” on the one hand and class-based struggle on the other. On both the left and right, this has resulted in a muddying of the terms at play, giving the impression that contemporary politics is either/or, a zero-sum game.

CURRENTS: Identity Politics invited artists to consider the concept in its original, radical intention. The exhibition therefore looked to the agency to be harnessed in unique lived and embodied experience, as well as in the co-conspirators with which our intersectional identities put us in relation and potential collective action. Through a broad array of media—including painting, sculpture, installation, video, and performance—the twelve artists included in the exhibition represented the range and rigor with which contemporary visual artists are addressing timely issues of identity, coalition building, and intersectional analysis and action. Their works attend to race, gender, class, and access from nuanced and diverse perspectives.

Artists: Ohan Breiding, Kiani Ferris, Yalda Foroughmand Arabi, Ranee Henderson, KC Crow Maddux, Yvonne Osei, Denisse Griselda Reyes, Morgan Thomas Shankweiler, Julia Kim Smith, Asia Stewart, Angelica Trimble-Yanu, Stephanie J. Woods