MARFA Ballroom Marfa presents unlit: sof landin and Tongues of Fire, two new exhibitions now on view through September 16.
In her solo exhibition unlit: sof landin, Li(sa E.) Harris creates an immersive dream space with newly commissioned works: a nine-hour composition with non-linear film, sculpture, and sonic collage. With this new body of work, Li envisions safe spaces for beings—Black beings in particular—to soften and activate the power of dreams and the unconscious as a means for transcendence, survival, preservation, and joy.
The exhibition is centered on Sleep On It, a nine-hour composition that guides listeners through an entire dream cycle transporting them to AFRAM—an imagined African-America. AFRAM is also an anagram of Marfa, a real place with a small Black population. Sleep On It was recorded mostly while Li was a Ballroom Sessions–The Farther Place Spring 2021 artist-in-residence. The exhibition invites us to explore and experience a softer way of listening, dreaming, and being.
unlit: sof landin–Li(sa E.) Harris is organized by Sarah Meléndez, Music Curator.
This group exhibition brings together artworks from six artists that reflect on language that has been suppressed, silenced, or obscured. Tongues of Fire features work by Jorge Méndez Blake, Jesse Chun, Adriana Corral, JJJJJerome Ellis, and Nakai Flotte.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by Chicana cultural theorist, writer, and poet Gloria Anzaldúa and her essay Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers (1981). Anzaldúa urges artists to “write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire.” While her rallying cry was to women artists of color, who were often pushed to the margins of culture, it still resonates widely today. Artists continue to use language, including their artistic languages, as acts of creativity, resistance, and power.
These artworks speak to us—with tongues ablaze, as Anzaldúa would wish—and remind us how to be alive. They are a testament to the potential for advocacy, humor, wonder, and pleasure we all may find through language. Through new rituals of reading, seeing, and listening, as the artists in Tongues of Fire present, languages are also shown to evolve.
Tongues of Fire is organized by Daisy Nam, Executive Director & Curator with assistance from Alexann Susholtz, Exhibitions & Curatorial Assistant.
UPCOMING PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
Li(sa E.) Harris performs D.R.E.A.M. = A WAY TO AFRAM at Ballroom Marfa on September 2 with Burniss Earl Travis II and at DiverseWorks in Houston on September 8 & 9.
JJJJJerome Ellis performs at Ballroom Marfa on September 15 in conjunction with Tongues of Fire; and at the Getty on September 17 as a part of their Ever Present series.
