Cosmo Whyte
b. 1982, St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica
Lives in Tallahassee
venue
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
900 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Monday, 11 AM–5 PM
Tuesday, closed
Wednesday–Sunday, 11 AM–5 PM
neighborhood
Downtown/Central Business District (CBD)
About the project
Cosmo Whyte’s work is driven by his approach to archival materials. The images that appear in his drawings and on the hand-painted beaded curtain on view here are pulled from historical photographs documenting Black people immersed in acts of nation building, pageantry, and celebration in places such as New York City, London, Toronto, and Kingston, Jamaica. Whyte recasts these events as political demonstrations and acts of defiance. The works examine the constraints imposed on Black life and illuminate vital histories of Black collectivity and resistance across the diaspora.
Whyte inscribes his drawings with markings that home in on or obscure certain aspects of the images, as if to invite viewers to interrogate history more attentively. These gestures and abrasions denote erasures in the historical record or gaps in cultural memory. With its loose gold leaf lines that twist around figures and passages of empty, blurred, or veiled imagery, the large-scale three-part work Sketches of Character exemplifies this impulse.
The Interlocutor, the beaded curtain work at the gallery’s entryway, shows an image of a Black man performing the limbo onstage before a mostly white audience. The work alludes to the ways that the cultural contributions of Black performers are often celebrated while Black people are regarded as second-class citizens. As viewers pass through the curtain they partake in the performance and are met on the other side of the curtain by the presence of a Black audience. This installation, taken as a whole, critiques and reflects the complex dynamics at play in performance and the consumption of spectacle.
The artist expresses special thanks to the Florida State University Master Craftsman Studio, the Harpo Foundation, Alex Adkinson, Josh Nierodzinski, and Nataša Prljević. Image rights acquired from Getty Images.
about the artist
Cosmo Whyte explores the history of migration through a variety of mediums, including drawing, performance, and sculpture. His process begins with his memories of the ways identity is shaped by paths of migration. His work weaves his personal narrative with a larger consideration of colonization of the Caribbean, as well as the contemporary social and political circumstances of the region, with a particular focus on Jamaica. Whyte has exhibited his works in the United States, Jamaica, Norway, England, France, and South Africa. He has been the recipient of the Art Matters Award (2019), The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2019), the Working Artist Award (2018), The Drawing Center's Open Sessions Fellowship (2018), Artadia Award (2016) and the Edge Award (2010). Recent exhibitions include Beneath Its Tongue, the Fish Rolls the Hook to Sharpen Its Cadence, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta (2019); Get Up Stand Up The Summerset House, London, UK (2019); Intermittent Rivers, 13th Havana Biennial Matanzas, Cuba (2019), the Jamaica Biennial (2017) and the Atlanta Biennial, Atlanta Contemporary (2016). Whyte earned a BFA from Bennington College, Vermont, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is currently a professor at Florida State University.
Cosmo Whyte, 2021. Installation view: Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, 2021–22. Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans. Courtesy Prospect New Orleans. Photo: Alex Marks