A Thousand Plateaus: Chris Berntsen, Camille Hoffman, Kambui Olujimi, And Patrice Renee Washington

About

To become imperceptible oneself, to have dismantled love in order to become capable of loving. To have dismantled one's self in order finally to be alone and meet the true double at the other end of the line. A clandestine passenger on a motionless voyage. To become like everybody else; but this, precisely, is a becoming only for one who knows how to be nobody, to no longer be anybody. To paint oneself gray on gray.

- Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

The title draws upon the 1980 philosophical text A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari which examines the idea of “assemblage” - an entity that is composed of multiple component parts that are not static or fixed. With its roots in the French word agencement, “assemblage” translates narrowly to English as "arrangement," "fitting,” or "fixing."

This exhibition examines the ways in which these artists use collage and assemblage as a means to deconstruct a fixed identity and discover one that is fluid with multiple functionalities. The artists in this exhibition draw upon both societal and personal history to address issues related to modality, mobility, and identity. Composed of found objects or images with symbolic and historic significance, the works in this exhibition convey the simultaneous states of becoming and unbecoming, constructing and deconstructing, liberation and confinement.