Fortune Tellers

FiveMyles has invited visual artist Kimberly Mayhorn to organize an exhibition based on a question she has asked herself: are artists the fortune-tellers in their societies? The six artists Mayhorn has invited to exhibit with her at FiveMyles use the principles of Fortune Telling as their muse: they have examined sacred languages and mysteries to gain insight into questions and situations that may seem disjointed or without clarity.

Simone Leigh’s graceful steel cradle is tightly packed with terra cotta, bullet-like objects, suspended from the cradle’s frame. The work brings to mind both the lightness of childhood and the inhuman crowding of the slave ships. Jasmine Murrell uses empty liquor bottles as her crystal ball in an installation of a ghetto in a bottle. A polyptych composed of seven wall pieces by Canadian artist Marisa Swangha incorporates miniscule books and predicts a future where printed words are tightly bound. Her fellow Canadian Sandra Brewster exhibits three paintings that tell the story of a woman who answered a call from the ancestors to practice Sangoma, a traditional South African healing practice. At the same time the paintings show her on-going interest in the commonly held notion of a Monolithic Black Community. Torkwase Dyson’s large wall piece made with hundreds of small black plastic earring cards deals with her concept of The Black Eco Imagination. The center of jewel-like snake-heads draws its energy from the surrounding blackness. A male/female body torso covered in hundreds of beads by Adjua Williams, connects with a higher source that fortune-tellers use to disseminate information. Planet earth becomes Kimberly Mayhorn’s canvas by incorporating an anchor, rope, 12lb. weight, clocks, and religious texts to create a mixed-media environment of a paradise lost.

Karma Mayet Johnson will present an Earth-based Mysticism and Black Lesbian Herstory evening performance accompanying song-cycle, rooted in the Delta: “Thunderbook: Readings from the Indigo Manuscripts.” The performance takes place on Friday, October 2 at 7:30 pm.

Kimberly Mayhorn graduated from Howard University in 1991. She received a Whitney Museum Independent Study Fellowship in 2000 and has received art residencies at the Bronx Museum; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts; Sculpture Space; Aljira; HERE Arts Center and was recently nominated for a daytime Emmy for editing.

FiveMyles is supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Independence Community Foundation.