Exhibition

Damien Davis | Benefit Suite

20 Jul 2020 – 1 Aug 2020

Regular hours

Monday
Closed
Tuesday
11:00 – 17:00
Wednesday
11:00 – 17:00
Thursday
11:00 – 17:00
Friday
11:00 – 17:00
Saturday
12:00 – 17:00
Sunday
Closed

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New York
New York, United States

Address

Travel Information

  • Q59 to Grand/61st, B57 to 61st/Grand, Q39 to Grand/61st
  • Jefferson L
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Mrs. and Fire Island Artist Residency are proud to sponsor a suite of unique works by Damien Davis. All proceeds will go to a selection of organizations committed to the amplification of Black voices.

About

Mrs. and Fire Island Artist Residency are proud to sponsor a suite of thirteen unique works by Damien Davis.  All proceeds of the sales of these new, exclusive sculptures will go directly to a selection of thirteen organizations committed to the amplification of Black voices within art, design, culture and social justice. Mrs. and FIAR are committed to reexamining and challenging our ongoing understanding and response to the effects of systemic racism in our culture which includes frequent acts of violence inflicted on communities of color.  Both of our organizations are grateful to Davis for permitting us to play a role in his own ongoing efforts to meet and address these enormous cultural challenges. Please consider adding one of these exciting new works by this artist to your collection today. Together with Davis we can all support these organizations to create real solutions for the injustices facing our communities of color.

Davis’ practice seeks to unpack the visual language of Black cultures, questioning how we code/decode/recode representations of race through craft, design and digital modes of production. For this fundraiser, Davis has chosen to deepen his exploration of the formal possibilities of his iconic “Black power button pick,” a riff on the iconic Black fist Afro comb, an evocative symbol of Black pride that rose to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century.

While this object was a source of pride for the Black Diaspora, it was simultaneously demonized by others for its political nature in relation to Black Power. It was not uncommon in the 1970s and 1980s (and still today) for police to confiscate afro combs because of their perceived potential use as weapons. In these works, for Davis “the fist has been transformed into a power button based on the glyph’s history as a binary switch (the “1” and the “0” literally becoming one); an acknowledgment of a hopeful, almost futurist stance on what being Black in a digital age has the potential to look like; and a declaration that Blackness will indeed exist in the future. Not only do we use our fists to dismantle an unjust system, but also our minds, our resources, our technology, and our collective willpower.”

The artist has chosen thirteen organizations that amplify underrepresented Black voices in the arts.  Each piece is assigned to support a specific organization. To acquire a work, a collector must provide its corresponding organization with direct, financial support.  It is Davis’ wish that this project will both raise money and awareness for the amazing work already happening for and by Black people in the arts.  This suite of works are temporarily being offered at a discount to encourage sales and benefit the organizations chosen by the artist more swiftly.

Please consider learning more about and making a donation of any size to the following:

Black Women’s Blueprint

Black Artists and Designers Guild

Arts Administrators of Color Network

Afrotectopia

The Black School

Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art and Storytelling

Northwest African American Museum

Black Lunch Table

The Laundromat Project

Black Art Futures Fund

Marsha P. Johnson Institute

Black Trans Femmes in the Arts

Weeksville Heritage Center


Damien Davis (b. 1984), holds a BFA in Studio Art and an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University.  His works have appeared at The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY and various galleries across the country. He is the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Community Engagement Grant and has been awarded residencies with Triangle Arts Association, the Museum of Arts and Design, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Pilchuck Glass School and Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling. Davis is currently an artist in residence at Dieu Donné Paper Mill in Brooklyn, NY.  He is also a former fellow and current advisor for the Art & Law Program in New York.  Davis lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

To view, reserve, or acquire one of these iconic original works by Damien Davis, please contact hello@mrsgallery.com, today.

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Damien Davis

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