Coinciding with Frieze New York 2021, join a special online screening of Theaster Gates’ ‘Dance of Malaga’ (2019) on White Cube Online. The screening is part of a series of initiatives in tribute to the Vision & Justice Project and its founder Sarah Elizabeth Lewis. 1pm ET, 6pm BST.
Dance of Malaga (2019) addresses complex and intertwining issues of race, territory and inequality in the Northern United States since the end of the Civil War. Exploring social histories of migration and interracial relations using a specific episode in American history, the non-linear narrative of the film addresses larger questions of black subjugation and the sexual domination and racial mixing that resulted from it. The inspiration for the work is the story of Malaga Island in the state of Maine, where, in 1912, its governor forcibly evicted all inhabitants of the island, a small interracial community who had been living in harmony and self-sufficiently until this point.
Featuring music and performance by The Black Monks, the film also sees a new collaboration between Gates and American choreographer and dancer Kyle Abraham. Together the two artists develop this non-verbal language for incomplete narratives that are played out within an environment reminiscent of the island of Malaga.
As part of the exhibition ‘Amalgam’, the film premiered in 2019 at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France and toured to Tate Liverpool, UK. It was informed by his research during a residency undertaken by Gates at the Lunder Institute for American Art, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine
About the Vision & Justice Project
The Vision & Justice Project is dedicated to examining art’s central role in understanding the relationship between race and citizenship in the United States. Rooted in the prescient thinking of Frederick Douglass, and his post-Civil War speech ‘Pictures & Progress’, the project wrestles with the urgent question of how, in a democracy, the foundational right of representation and the right to be recognized justly, has historically been, and remains, tied to the work of visual representation in the public realm. This work helps us to expand our visual literacy, which in turn could alter the lens through which we see the world. We are pleased to be in support of this research and endeavor, and to be actively involved in this conversation through this film screening. For more information visit www.visionandjustice.org
