Project for Empty Space, on Wednesday, March 27, for the first time in its 14-year history, opened its doors to a new exhibition space for artists in New York City. The new PES NYC headquarters lives at 128 Baxter Street in Manhattan’s historic Chinatown neighborhood and be the home of the new "PES FUTURES” program.
PES FUTURES is a space for artists interested in how both parallel and intersecting potentialities can be realized. It is an incubator for the wildest dreams and visions of artists today, particularly those who have historically been pushed to the margins. This space will serve as a way for them to claim and reclaim space through their respective art.
Above image: Orbiting Us 1, 2017. Mixed media collage on paper. 48 in. x 72 in.
“We wanted to create a multi-centric space where art could impact social change and artists could experiment and play. We are eager to disrupt monolithic historical narratives, and pivot our frameworks to be inclusive and expansive in thinking about various futurisms. PES FUTURES will serve as an incubator and nurturing space for artists to think deeply about what can come to pass.” said PES Co-Directors Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol.
"I'm honored to be the inaugural artist at PES FUTURES with my Future People presentation. I find it more than fitting since the ideas surrounding this body of work are so aligned with the driving concept of this space and its leadership." said Derrick Adams.
The first inaugural program to exhibit in the space will be multidisciplinary artist Derrick Adams who was a member of the PES Artist In Residence program’s first cohort back in 2015. Adams’ first exhibition at Project for Empty Space (Newark) explored concepts of play and leisure within the contemporary context. Nearly a decade later, to bring his art full circle, Adams tells stories of Black culture in a different and more nuanced light since his time with the AIR program.
Derrick Adams’ latest “Future People… Take Off” is an imagined environment meditating on past, present, and future ideas of Black culture and its interest in futurism and African roots. Inspired by the Afrofuturist movement, Derrick Adams’ installation references Sun Ra’s film Space is the Place, the television series Star Trek, and Kerry James Marshall’s painting Keeping the Culture. From a simulated spaceship, viewers see the solar system and the stars beyond; the immediate celestial bodies of our sun, planets, and moons share space with images of African tribal objects, people, and items of technology and design.
The exhibition incorporates images, music, and text from the Stony Island Arts Bank archive, including Johnson Publishing (publisher of Ebony and Jet Magazines). University of Chicago Glass Lantern Slides (art and architectural history from the Paleolithic to Modern eras), Edward J Williams Collection (mass cultural objects and artifacts that feature stereotypical images of people of color), and the record collection of Frankie Knuckles, the “GodFather of House Music”.
Select images throughout the collages and video are from A Life’s Design, a Johnson collection book featuring products and inventions of longtime Chicago resident Charles Harrison, the first African-American executive at Sears, Roebuck and Co., who was involved with designing over 750 consumer products including the iconic view master viewer, hair dryers, and the first plastic trash can. Combining images of manipulated barbershop portraits, paper plates mimicking satellite dishes, and design elements, Derrick Adams creates an environment that fuses elements of Sci-Fi and the African American narrative with contemporary culture, gathering people under an imagined, shared future life.
In addition to works from his Orbiting Us series, Adams will debut a new collectible item -- a limited edition pendant that embodies the perfect fusion of art and craftsmanship created in collaboration with Gautam & Saunders Jewelers, a renowned jewelry company with over 40 years of expertise in creating exquisite and timeless jewels. Inspired by the character Oz (played by Richard Pryor) in The Wiz (1978), Adams created a larger-than-life sculpture much like the metallic head from the movie over a decade ago. Now a miniature version of that sculpture, fashioned in diamonds and 18K white gold, will be on view over the duration of the exhibition.
“Future People… Take Off” was on display from March 27th to May 25, 2024.