Jacolby Satterwhite: Spirits Roaming on the Earth curated by Elizabeth Chodos at Miller ICA at CMU. Exhibition photo by Tom Little, 2021.
Jacolby Satterwhite: Spirits Roaming on the Earth
Aug 14 - Dec 5, 2021
Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University will present the first major monographic survey of Jacolby Satterwhite’s work. Curated by Elizabeth Chodos, Spirits Roaming on the Earth traces ten years of the artist’s panoramic oeuvre.
Satterwhite incorporates a broad set of real and fantastical references in his work—drawing from sources that include modernism, mythology, video gaming, queer theory, and Black culture—that inform his 3D animated videos, sculptures, electronic dance tracks, and performances. His wide-ranging practice evokes an essential moral lesson on the healing properties of human creativity as Satterwhite transforms existential uncertainty into a generative engine of resilience, reinvention, and celebration. This ability is something he shares with his late mother and muse, Patricia Satterwhite, who leveraged her own irrepressible creative energy to transform hardship into new worlds of possibility.
A world-builder himself, Satterwhite has developed a multiform gestalt that can be fully appreciated for the first time in this exhibition and its companion monograph How lovly is me being as I am, that is edited by Elizabeth Chodos and Andrew Durbin with contributions by Sasha Bonét, Malik Gaines, Jane Ursula Harris, Legacy Russell, Kimberly Drew, and book design by Sonia Yoon. Taken together, the book and exhibition present the artist’s extraordinary creative trajectory, which cannot be fully understood only through its component parts. Mapping this holistic view of Satterwhite’s singular ability to masterfully synthesize personal, theoretical, and pop-cultural influences across a wide range of materials and genres with unmatched skill and dexterity affirms his position as one of the preeminent makers and thinkers of our time.
This exhibition was made possible with support from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Frank Ratchye Studio for Creative Inquiry, The Center for the Arts in Society, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, and with major support from The Andy Warhol Foundation, the College of Fine Arts, Regina and Marlin Miller, and other individual donors.
Header image credit: Jacolby Satterwhite, Black Luncheon, 2020. Animated neon, unique. 84 by 88 in. 213.4 by 223.5 cm. Mitchell-Innes & Nash.
This exhibition features contemporary art with adult content.
