"greater works than these shall he do. . ."

“. . . the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do . . .” -John the Apostle

Employing diverse methods of observation in a studio practice that includes installation, painting, sculpture, and performance to confront the separation between politics, art, and the outside world, Carter underlines the influence of other artists with a selection of works by: Stanya Kahn, Betye Saar, Michael St. John, and Henry Taylor.

Exhibiting work by his peer’s gestures towards the importance of dialogue, which is a continued power within a community of artists. Here, with the inclusion Taylor’s portrait painting titled If you been there you’d know he’s a Cartegena bro, the works point to social and political issues affecting African Americans today and the importance of family and community in a social world consisting of racial inequality, homelessness, and poverty. Emphasizing a relationship to abstraction and text, Kahn’s Abstraction, communicates ideas relating to art and its troubled affair with decoration. St. John’s A Flag, integrates the context of American culture and the heightened state of politics while Saar’s The Realm of the Inner Landscape, emphasizes magical spiritualism in the realm of empowerment.

ABOUT ARTISTS

Stanya Kahn lives and works in Los Angeles and received an MFA from Bard College, NY. She is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in video with a practice that includes sound design, writing, drawing and performance. Recent solo exhibitions include shows at the New Museum/NY, Pigna Projectspace in Rome, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects and Cornerhouse in Manchester, a survey of works from 2008 to 2012 with accompanying monograph. Kahn is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow in Film/Video. She has collaborated with Harry Dodge, Ishmael HoustonJones, the performance company CORE and was a contributing writer and co-star in the award-winning independent feature film By Hook or By Crook. Solo and collaborative works (with Dodge) have shown in The Whitney Biennial (08); The California Biennial (10); MoMA/NY; MOCA/LA; The Getty Center/LA, the Hammer Museum/LA; the Sundance Film Festival; Migrating Forms Film Festival/NY; MOCA San Diego; the Center for Art and Media/Karlsrühe; PS1 Museum of Contemporary Art/NY; Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Elizabeth Dee Gallery/NY, among others.

Betye Saar (b.1926) is one of the most important artists of her generation, playing a seminal role in the development of Assemblage art. Since the 1960s, her work has reflected on African-American identity, spirituality and the connectedness between different cultures. Saar’s work can be found in the permanent collections of more than 60 museums, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. Recent exhibitions include “Betye Saar: Uneasy Dancer” Fondazione Prada, Milan, curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose (September 2016); "Visual Art and the American Experience" Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, Washington, D.C., organized by Lonnie Bunch III (September 2016). Recent exhibitions include “America Is Hard to See” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); “Take an Object” Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized by Cara Manes (2016); “A Constellation” The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, organized by Amanda Hunt (2016); and “Betye Saar: Still Tickin’” Museum De Domijnen, Sittard, The Netherlands, curated by Roel Arkesteijn (2015) and then traveled to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona, curated by Sara Cochran, PhD (2016).

Henry Taylor was born in Ventura, CA (1958) and received a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include a self-titled exhibition at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA; This Side, That Side, The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, Mexico (2016); They shot my dad, they shot my dad!, Artpace, San Antonio, TX (2015); and a retrospective at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY (2012). His work has been featured in group exhibitions in museums worldwide including the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium (forthcoming, 2016); Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway (forthcoming, 2016); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (2016); Hammer Museum at Art + Practice, Los Angeles, CA (2016); Camden Arts Centre, London, UK (2016); Studio Museum, Harlem, NY (2013); Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (2012); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2011); and the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL (2011).

Michael St. John was born in Indiana, moved to New York and now lives and works in Massachusetts. He Studied at the Chicago Adademy of Fine Art, School of Visual Arts, New York, and Art Students League, New York. He has had multiple solo exhibitions at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, with other solo exhibitions at Marvelli Gallery, New York; Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York; and Team Gallery, New York. Group exhibitions include Spring Break Art Show, New York; Marlborough Gallery, New York; Basilica Hudson, Hudson, NY; CCS Bard/Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL; Greene Naftali, New York; American Folk Art Museum, New York; and Feature Inc., New York. Three books have been published on St. John and his work has been the subject for reviews in BOMB Magazine, Art in America, W Magazine, The New York Times, Art News, Time Out, and The Village Voice. He has lectured at Yale School of Art, CT, SUNY Purchase College, NY, School of Visual Art, NY, and New York University. His work is included in the public collections of The Rubell Family Collection, FL; MIT List Visual Arts Center, MA; Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC; The Webb School of Knoxville, TN; Neuberger Berman, NY; The Tang Teaching Museum, NY, Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK and many private collections.