Mask Of Prosperity: Ancestry, Identity, and Inheritance

Nature vs nurture is a foundational question of human psychology, biology, sociology, and theology – its a concept that's explored in basically all the “ologies”. While the dominion of these two forces on an individual's identity may never be truly resolved, that doesn’t make it a fruitless contemplation. Regardless of personal opinion on the subject, family represents the principal determinant of both nature and nurture in an individual’s life. Besides relatively rare outliers (including adoption, surrogate situations, reproductive cell donation, and ….whatever this is), family dictates both ones genes as well as the formative experiences that shape a personality. Echoes of ancestry often reverberate throughout lives in the way a person views certain experiences, the way they treat other people, and what they value. These inherited character traits consciously and subconsciously guide personality in subtle ways that sometimes assist in - and other times handicap – how we interact with the world.

Mask of Prosperity, UIC’s Gallery 400’s recently opened exhibition, is a deep exploration of inheritance and familial legacy in the myriad of inter-generational ways they manifest. The multimedia exhibition combines sculptural work, photography, re-contextualized objects, and video interviews to interrogate the tangible and intangible concept of heritage, exploring the influence of things one receives from their ancestors and how they shape a person’s existence. When dealing with such a subject there is naturally a specter of loss that permeates throughout each of the individual works, with many of the featured artists producing pieces directly honoring a recently deceased ancestor. Despite the somewhat grievous aura, the collection maintained a strong focus on themes of appreciation and gratitude, honoring the vestiges left behind by those who have passed.

The white walls of the gallery contrasted the largely achromatic works in the main room while also highlighting the few splashes of color – especially within the photography collage of Carmen Winant’s “Clinic Pictures” and the untitled furniture piece by Caroline Kent and Nate Young. Both works were largely inspirational in the sense that the former honored the often underappreciated legacy of women in healthcare – especially prescient with the recent restrictions enacted on women’s health - while the latter was created explicitly as an heirloom to be gifted to their progenies. Following this theme, the series of videos by Bouchra Khalili, titled “Mother’s Tongue”, consisted of a series of progressive political texts recitations by immigrants in France, Italy, and the United States. These often caliginous and intimate videos alluded to the heritability of revolutionary thought, with the translation of the recitation into unwritten and disappearing languages acting as a cryptic reminder that the existence of these radical philosophies from Malcolm X and Edouard Glissant are just as at risk of being lost as the languages in which they are being spoken.

Signet Rings by Sonya Clark

After suffering a loss, there is a human compulsion to mourn and regret – we ruminate on our last discussion or interaction, often yearning for just one more moment to reconcile with the dearly departed. To cope, we collect memories and physical items associated with the deceased, imparting an animism to these objects by assigning them a deep symbolism or metaphysical power. The pieces by Sonya Clark were a literal manifestation of this theme, with objects like a violin reed or a set of rings being modified with relics representative of significant time periods or shared cultural values. These were some of the more powerful pieces in the collection with the juxtaposition of traditional and modern, manufactured and natural, and light and dark representing the cyclical nature of heritage and re-contextualizing the ache of historical trauma into an acknowledgement of ancestral perseverance.

The exhibition as a whole was reminiscent of Generational Theory and William Strauss and Neil Howe’s book “The Fourth Turning”, which posits that humanity is cyclical on both a macro and micro time horizon with cultural inversions occurring at 40 year intervals. The past few decades have little parallel in human history, combining mechanical progress with social upheaval. Within the last 30 years, the world has seen many “once in a lifetime” events including a pandemic, an economic collapse, and near exponential technological advancement. The tug of war between the principals of the past and the inertia towards a more equitable future are palpable in a way likely not seen in America since the civil rights movement of the 20th century. As systems are being restructured at an unprecedented rate, sometimes the only thing to hold on to heritage and lineage. Despite the tumult of the last few generations and the potential future chaos forecasted by Strauss and Howe, I'm reminded of an African proverb referenced on "The Offering" by The Darkhouse Family: "If you know the beginning well, the end will not trouble you".

The exhibition is open from May 10th through August 3rd 2024 and features events throughout the duration of the run, including artist round tables, curatorial walk throughs, and virtual tours. More info is available on Gallery 400's webpage here.

Still from Mother's Tongue by Bouchra Khalili