










Language in Times of Miscommunication
Mar 4 - Aug 27, 2023
This exhibition presents artworks that use various forms of language to critically examine the complexities of social reality during times of rampant miscommunication.
Language in Times of Miscommunication presents artworks by nineteen American artists that incorporate various forms of language (poetry, speculative fiction, and slang), modes of communication (propaganda, protest, social media, and advertising), and research (archives, political documents, and the news). The assembled works form a timely exchange about the slippery relationship between opinion, fact, and fiction in order to address the socio-political ramifications of divisive language and alternative narratives that have unraveled society since 2016—a year that marked a shift in recognizing the fallibility of communication in the United States. The exhibition and artworks do not ignore the polemical and rarely posit either fact or truth; rather they attempt to incite a critical and expansive discourse about the complexities of social reality in times of rampant miscommunication.
The exhibition presents artwork in a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, print, textiles, ceramics, neon, video, sound, installation, social media, and public interventions in three of SMoCA’s main galleries and front window, as well as various locations in Scottsdale and Phoenix. The accompanying catalogue acts as a twofold object—publication and artwork by Polymode—that presents an extensive essay and numerous color illustrations through an unorthodox layout that conveys notions of intentional and unintentional miscommunication.
Artists include Kristin Bauer, Alexandra Bell, April Bey, Andrea Bowers, York Chang, Jeremy Dean, Jeffrey Gibson, Jenny Holzer, Christopher Jagmin, Glenn Ligon, Patrick Martinez, Elizabeth Moran, Ann Morton, Polymode, William Powhida, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Horacio Rodriquez, Safwat Saleem, and Anna Tsouhlarakis.
Organized by Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Lauren R. O’Connell, curator of contemporary art, with Keshia Turley, curatorial assistant.
Artists
Kristin Bauer (b. 1982, Minneapolis)
lives and works in Tempe and Los Angeles. She received a bachelor of arts from Arizona State University and a master of arts from Ottawa University. Select exhibiting institutions include The Empty Circle, Brooklyn; Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, Minnesota; H. F. Johnson Gallery of Art at Carthage College, Kenosha, Wisconsin; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; WhiteBox, New York City; ASU Art Museum, Tempe; Phoenix Art Museum; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; and Tucson Museum of Art.
Alexandra Bell (b. 1983, Chicago)
lives and works in Brooklyn. She received a bachelor of arts from the University of Chicago and a master of science in journalism from Columbia University. Select exhibiting institutions include Atlanta Contemporary; Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, Claremont, California; Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond; MoMA PS1, Queens, New York City; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; and Usdan Gallery at Bennington College, Vermont. Major group exhibitions include the Whitney Biennial (2019). Bell has received an Artadia Award (2020), an International Center of Photography Infinity Award (2018), and a Soros Equality Fellowship (2018).
April Bey (b. 1987, New Providence, the Bahamas)
lives and works in Los Angeles. She received a bachelor of fine arts from Ball State University and an master of fine arts from California State University, Northridge. Select exhibiting institutions include the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Fullerton College Art Gallery, California; Kent State University Museum, Ohio; Lancaster Museum of Art and History, California; National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, Nassau; New Orleans African American Museum; and Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach.
Andrea Bowers (b. 1965, Wilmington, Ohio)
lives and works in Los Angeles. She received a bachelor of fine arts from Bowling Green State University and a master of fine arts from California Institute of the Arts. Select exhibiting institutions include the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York City; the High Line, New York City; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City. Major international exhibitions include the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art (2021), documenta 14 (2017), and the Triennale Milano (2017).
York Chang (b. 1973, St. Louis)
lives and works in Los Angeles. He received a bachelor of arts and a juris doctor degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. Select exhibiting institutions include the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena; Edel Assanti, London; Corner at Whitman-Walker, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, California; Institute of Contemporary Art; and Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park, California.
Jeffery Gibson (Choctaw/Cherokee, b. 1972, Colorado Springs, Colorado)
lives and works in Hudson, New York. He received a bachelor of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a master of arts from the Royal College of Art, and an honorary doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. Select exhibiting institutions include the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Brooklyn Museum, New York City; Denver Art Museum; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and New Museum, New York. Major exhibitions include the Whitney Biennial (2019), Desert X (2017), and Prospect New Orleans (2015). Gibson has received a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award (2019), a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2015), and a Creative Capital Foundation Grant (2005).
Jenny Holzer (b. 1950, Gallipolis, Ohio)
lives and works in New York. She received a bachelor of fine arts from Ohio University, a master of fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a doctorate of fine arts from Pratt Institute. Select exhibiting institutions include the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and New York City; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City. Major international exhibitions include the Venice Biennale (2005) and documenta 8 (1987). Holzer has received numerous awards, including the International Medal of Arts from the U.S. Department of State (2017) and Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award, Americans for the Arts (2011).
Christopher Jagmin (b. 1958, South Bend, Indiana)
lives and works in Phoenix. He received a bachelor of fine arts from Indiana University, Bloomington. Select exhibiting institutions include the Chautauqua Visual Arts Galleries, New York; Truro Center for the Arts, Massachusets; Phoenix Art Museum; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; and Tucson Museum of Art. Jagmin has received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2022) and a Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson Grant for Artists through the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (2020), as well as completed a residency at The Studio at Mass MoCA (2019).
Glenn Ligon (b. 1960, New York)
lives and works in New York. He received a bachelor of arts from Wesleyan University and participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Major exhibitions include Prospect New Orleans (2021), the Venice Biennale (1997 and 2015), the Berlin Biennale (2014), the Istanbul Biennale (2011), documenta 11 (2002), the Gwangju Biennale (2000), and the Whitney Biennial (1991, 1993). Ligon has received numerous awards, including the Rome Prize from the American Academy (2019), the Studio Museum in Harlem Wein Artist Prize (2009), the Skowhegan Medal for Painting (2006), a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2003), and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (1997).
Patrick Martinez (b. 1980, Pasadena, California)
lives and works in Los Angeles. He received a bachelor of fine arts from ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena. Select exhibiting institutions include the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; Dallas Contemporary; Gana Art Center, Seoul; Intitute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, San Jose, California; Rollins Museum of Art, Winter Park, Florida; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Tucson Museum of Art; and Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park, California.
Elizabeth Moran (b. 1984, Houston)
lives and works in Brooklyn. She received a bachelor of fine arts from New York University and a master of fine arts and master of art from California College of the Arts. Select exhibiting institutions include the Contemporary Jewish Museum and California College of the Arts Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco; Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia; Hawn Gallery at Southern Methodist University, Dallas; Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York City; Stove Works, Chattanooga; and Studio la Città, Verona. Moran teaches at Parsons School of Design, the New School in New York City.
Ann Morton (b. 1954, Phoenix)
lives and works in Phoenix. She received a bachelor of fine arts and a master of fine arts from Arizona State University. Select exhibiting institutions include the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco; Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum; and Phoenix Art Museum. Her public projects have been supported by foundations including Americans for the Arts, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the U.S. State Department. Morton is a faculty associate at ASU, Mesa Community College, and Paradise Valley Community College.
Polymode (est. 2014)
is a bicoastal, LGBTQ+, and minority-owned studio led by partners Silas Munro and Brian Johnson. Studio members include Michelle Lamb, Randa Hadi, Audrey Davies, and Edgar Casarin. Polymode specializes in publications, exhibitions, websites, and visual design for clients including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York City; Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond; the Venice Biennale (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; New Museum, New York City; Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, California; and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City.
William Powhida (b. 1976, New York)
lives and works in New York. He received a bachelor of art from Syracuse University and a master of fine art from Hunter College. Select exhibiting institutions include the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; the Contemporary, Baltimore; Casa Maauad, Mexico City; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Dublin Contemporary; Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, California; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn; California College of the Arts Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; and White Columns, New York.
Kameelah Janan Rasheed (b. 1985, East Palo Alto, California)
lives and works in Brooklyn. She received a bachelor of arts from Pomona College and a master of arts from Stanford University. Select exhibiting institutions include Ballroom Marfa, Texas; Brooklyn Museum, Times Square Art Center, New Museum, Public Art Fund, and Studio Museum in Harlem in New York; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Kunsthalle Wien; National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare; and Mass Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams. Major exhibitions include Prospect New Orleans (2021) and the Venice Biennale (2017). Rasheed has received the Creative Capital Award (2022) and a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2021).
Horacio Rodriguez (b. 1974, Houston)
lives and works in Salt Lake City. He received a bachelor of arts from the University of Redlands and a master of arts from Montana State University. Select exhibiting institutions include the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts, Wyoming; Ogden Contemporary Arts, Utah; Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City; and Arts Center of Western Colorado, Grand Junction. Rodriguez has received an Artists Career and Advancement Scholarship (2022) and a Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellowship (2020–21).
Safwat Saleem (b. 1980, United Arab Emirates)
lives and works in Phoenix. He received a bachelor of science from the University of Southern Mississippi and a master of science from Arizona State University. Select exhibiting institutions include the Open Data Institute at the Cartagena Data Festival, Colombia; Puffin Cultural Forum, Teaneck, New Jersey; Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; Tempe Public Art; and Vision Gallery, Chandler. He founded the online Pakistani music magazine Bandbaja and has received the American Advertising Award (2015 and 2021–22), a Rocky Mountain Emmy Award (2021), and a TED Fellowship (2013 and 2015).
Anna Tsouhlarakis (Navajo, b. 1977, Lawrence, Kansas)
lives and works in Boulder, Colorado. She received a bachelor of arts from Dartmouth College and a master of fine arts from Yale University. Select exhibiting institutions include the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Heard Museum, Phoenix; the Lab, San Francisco; Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; NEON Foundation, Athens, Greece; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock, Arizona. Tsouhlarakis has received the Creative Capital Award (2021) and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship (2007).
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