Mario Moore, 1701, 2023

Mario Moore (Detroit, Michigan) received a BFA from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI in 2009 and an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT in 2013. Moore’s paintings focus on the personal, social and political implications of our segregated society. Presenting stories of his own life and those of friends and family, Moore weaves in multiple references to history, art, politics and literature to complete his narrative. He is a recent Kresge Arts Fellow (2023) awarded through the Kresge Foundation and a recipient of the prestigious Princeton Hodder Fellowship (2018-2019) through Princeton University. He also has been awarded residencies at Duke University, Josef and Annie Albers Foundation, Fountainhead, and Knox College. Moore’s work is in the permanent collections of but not limited to the Detroit Institute of Arts, Princeton University Art Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Mott-Warsh Collection, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, California African American Museum, Flint Institute of Art and The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Moore’s work has been widely exhibited, including at The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, NJ; the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; David Klein Gallery, Detroit, MI; Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Colby College Museum of Art and is currently in the Smithsonian Sites Exhibition (traveling), Men of Change. His most recent major exhibitions Mario Moore / Enshrined: Presence & Preservation, the largest survey of Moore’s work to date, opened at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit in June 2021 and at the California African American Museum (CAAM) in March 2022, also his first solo exhibition on the West Coast. Moore’s next museum exhibition Revolutionary Times will open in January 2024 at the Flint Institute of Arts.

The works from this series are based on a series that investigates the origin of French Detroit and the fur trade of the 18th and 19th century that was part of the western expansion of the US. Black Detroiters specifically embrace a certain style that uses the fur as a trademark. These works show that sense of contemporary style but also look at the history of slavery in Canada and Michigan to expand the West. Black slaves were used to transport furs as part of the lucrative fur trade for the French and English in Detroit.

All works on copper uses the material as a question to the viewer to reflect and obscure one’s own identity. Using W.E.B Dubois idea of double consciousness it challenges the viewer to sympathise with the Black body and see a veiled reflection of themselves in the copper surface.

'1701' gets its title from the year Detroit was founded by the French. The date is also reflected in a portrait painting of King Louis XIV by Hyancinthe Rigaud completed in 1701. which inspired the figure's pose in Moore's painting. Another reference for the date is the founding of Yale University where Moore received his MFA, a reflection on the maker of this piece. The figure in the painting embraces quintessential Detroit style and takes on the French King's nickname “The Fashion King”.

Curated by June Sarpong | Brussels: Filling in the Pieces in Black

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