Join us for a virtual tour as artist Esmaa Mohamoud and curator Matthew Kyba present the works in To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat. This exhibition is on at the Art Gallery of Hamilton until August 15, 2021.
Taking inspiration from the African American writer Ralph Ellison, artist Esmaa Mohamoud explores the ways in which Black bodies at once appear―and yet are rendered metaphorically invisible―within the spaces they navigate. To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat aims to re-examine understandings of contemporary Blackness, questioning the definitions of Blackness as a colour and shade, and/or as a societal or cultural construction.
Curated by Matthew Kyba, Curator of Exhibitions at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat is organized and circulated by Museum London.
#AGHEsmaa #ArtGalleryOfHamilton #HamOnt #HamiltonOntario #HamiltonJoin us for a virtual tour as artist Esmaa Mohamoud and curator Matthew Kyba present the works in To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat. This exhibition is on at the Art Gallery of Hamilton until August 15, 2021.
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Chapters
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Introduction
Introduction
0:00
Introduction
0:00
Glorious Bones
Glorious Bones
1:05
Glorious Bones
1:05
Randall Cunningham
Randall Cunningham
1:55
Randall Cunningham
1:55
Blood and Tears
Blood and Tears
2:48
Blood and Tears
2:48
Hoop Dreams
Hoop Dreams
3:34
Hoop Dreams
3:34
Chain Gang
Chain Gang
5:05
Chain Gang
5:05
In the Dress
In the Dress
6:05
In the Dress
6:05
Mouth Guard
Mouth Guard
7:04
Mouth Guard
7:04
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Introduction
0:15
hi there my name is matthew kaiba i’m
0:17
the curator of exhibitions i’m here with
0:19
artist esma mahmoud a multi-disciplinary
0:23
artist from toronto and we’re here to
0:25
present the exhibition to play in the
0:26
face of certain defeat
0:29
a lot of this exhibition plays with the
0:31
notions of invisibility and visibility
0:34
seeing and not seeing the multiplicity
0:36
of blackness versus the monolith of
0:38
blackness
0:39
all through the realm of athleticism
0:41
throughout the show we have a number of
0:43
works that
0:44
talk to different aspects of black
0:46
identity but also gender hyper
0:48
masculinity
0:50
economic subjugation
0:52
the destruction of black bodies so it’s
0:54
quite a full show
0:56
with
0:57
a number of these works that are very
0:59
poignant and and sombra really
Glorious Bones
1:05
one of the first works in the show is
1:07
glorious bones it’s an installation of
1:09
46 helmets that have been covered in
1:12
kente pattern cloth
1:13
and it’s sitting on a bed
1:16
of recycled tires which is meant to be
1:19
evocative of earth
1:21
as you can see
1:22
with this installation all of these
1:24
helmets they almost follow you peering
1:27
out as these
1:28
raised memorials
1:31
because of the joyful colors that are
1:34
implied in it it no longer feels like an
1:36
attack on the viewer
1:38
even though all the helmets are facing
1:40
back in a very voyeuristic way and
1:42
returning the gaze to the viewer it
1:44
doesn’t feel as intimidating as it would
1:47
if all the helmets were one solid color
1:50
for example
1:52
[Music]
Randall Cunningham
1:55
the seat above the table randall
1:57
cunningham was inspired by the lack of
2:00
representation in positions of power
2:02
i always felt that if there was seats
2:05
that were available at the table there
2:07
were seats that didn’t actually
2:08
accompany power
2:09
and they were seats that were meant to
2:12
be tokenizing or
2:14
were meant as a facade to power so i
2:17
wanted to build a seat that rose above
2:19
the table
2:20
randall cunningham was an extremely
2:23
prolific passer and
2:25
rusher as a quarterback in the nfl and
2:29
why this is of note is because there are
2:32
so few black quarterbacks black head
2:35
coaches black owners if you look at the
2:39
discrepancy between
2:41
races within positions of power within
2:43
the nfl there’s very little
2:46
heterogeneity
Blood Tears
2:49
the piece that we’re looking at here is
2:50
blood and tears instead of milk and
2:52
honey
2:53
it’s an installation of 22 branded
2:55
footballs
2:56
that are installed in a circle on the
2:58
wall
3:00
one of the most important aspects of
3:02
this work is the multiplicity versus the
3:04
monolith and it’s directly speaking to
3:06
what this exhibition is about from a
3:08
distance all the footballs are black you
3:11
can’t even tell that they have patterns
3:12
and it’s only upon getting closer to the
3:14
work that you actually realize that each
3:16
football is branded and to me it was to
3:19
highlight this idea of the monolith
3:20
versus the multiplicity the invisible
3:23
versus visible
3:24
and to highlight this singular note of
3:27
blackness and what does that mean when
3:28
we’re all collectively lumped into one
3:31
identity
Hoop Dreams
3:34
the piece that we’re looking at here is
3:35
heavy heavy hoop dreams
3:38
and it’s an installation of 60 concrete
3:40
basketballs sitting on black plexiglas
3:43
each individual ball is indented in its
3:46
own particular way
3:48
despite all of the balls originating
3:49
from the exact same mold
3:52
so with this work i was really trying to
3:53
highlight the reality of what so many
3:56
black men go through when they’re geared
3:57
towards sports their entire life and
4:00
what it actually means when they don’t
4:01
make it to these goals and that reality
4:03
felt very heavy to me
4:06
collectively this installation weighs
4:08
1800 pounds each ball weighing 30 pounds
4:12
and i just wanted the weight of the work
4:14
to pull through
4:15
[Music]
4:16
i wanted a material that would be both
4:19
heavy strong but also fragile in its way
4:22
because i wanted to highlight the
4:24
fragility of black masculinity
The Boys
4:27
what we’re looking at here is one of the
4:28
boys black the reason that i shoot my
4:31
figures from behind is because i don’t
4:32
want them to be subjected to the
4:34
voyeurism that the viewer inherently
4:36
subjects them to so for me shooting them
4:39
from behind also
4:40
causes a barrier for whether or not that
4:42
subject is male or female
4:44
both the subject in black and the
4:46
subject in one of the boys white are the
4:48
same person
4:50
these works
4:51
are indicative of
4:54
what esma i think felt growing up where
4:57
it’s so taboo
4:58
to
4:59
operate within a non-conventional
5:01
understanding of black masculine but
5:04
also black femininity
5:05
what we’re looking at here is chain gang
Chain Gang
5:07
which is a 30-foot industrial chain that
5:10
has six cleats that hang off of it hung
5:12
from the ceiling down to challenge the
5:15
conventional ways that chain gangs have
5:17
been used throughout history which is in
5:19
a
5:20
line that goes on the ground rather than
5:22
a line that reaches up
5:24
the
5:25
length of 30 feet or 10 yards represents
5:28
the first down marker in football
5:30
but the term chain gang that actually is
5:34
borrowed
5:35
and used for nfl refs ironically enough
5:38
was born out of the
5:40
carceral system in the 1920s when
5:43
america started to privatize
5:45
prison systems and therefore had slave
5:49
labor again predominantly black men who
5:52
would do
5:54
extremely arduous tasks out in the hot
5:57
sun
5:58
for
5:59
basically no compensation whatsoever
6:05
so what we’re looking at here is
6:07
one of the boys black and one of the
6:10
boys white in the dress installation
6:13
this installation is made up of
6:15
repurposed jersey it’s made up of silk
6:18
this work is a very personal work to me
6:21
because it came out of a childhood
6:22
experience that i had where i was told
6:24
that i was not one of the boys and this
6:27
was my reaction
6:29
this work has been performed in but now
6:32
it’s lived in a series of gowns that are
6:35
vacant with an invisible mannequin
6:40
these victorian dresses and dresses of
6:41
that era were such a grand statement of
6:45
femininity so appropriating the
6:48
basketball jerseys here really causes a
6:51
schism or friction
6:53
between
6:55
the
6:56
performativity of femininity and also
6:58
the performativity of
6:59
male identity
Mouth Guard
7:03
we’re going to move on to one of my
7:05
favorite works in the show it is a 16
7:07
karat gold mouth guard inside the wall
7:11
guarded by a sheet of plexiglas
7:14
when you have a mouth guard in a player
7:16
it effectively silences them it’s very
7:19
hard to talk and it’s made of
7:21
16-karat gold and you have that
7:24
connection between wealth and affluence
7:26
and silencing
From the Ground We Fall
7:34
the video that we’re looking at here is
7:35
a three channel video the title of this
7:37
work is from the ground we fall and in
7:39
this video there are two men one of
7:42
which is my brother and one of his
7:45
childhood friends
7:47
they were attached by
7:49
chains
7:50
and told to tear each other apart for
7:52
the duration of the video so they were
7:55
pulling each other apart literally all
7:57
day
7:58
under the beating sun and to me it was
8:00
evocative on
8:02
the ways in which black people have been
8:04
pitted against each other especially in
8:06
sports
8:08
i think it makes conscious
8:10
the viewers complicity
8:13
in
8:14
the overall entertainment system that
8:16
feeds us the degradation and the
8:19
destruction of black bodies at the very
8:22
basic level this is the entertainment
8:25
that we consume that we spend
8:27
billions of dollars on each year to see
8:32
one person defeat
8:35
another
8:36
i really wanted to open up the
8:37
vulnerability of black masculinity and i
8:39
wanted to show the softer side because i
8:42
don’t think that we we really think of
8:44
black bodies being deteriorated in this
8:46
way because we say they’re being
Black Masculinity
8:49
compensated with money these football
8:51
players make millions of dollars
8:52
therefore it’s okay to do this and the
8:55
reality is these men are tearing each
8:58
other apart
9:01
we have conversations about invisibility
9:03
and visibility we have the conversation
9:05
of fragility versus hyper masculinity
9:07
we’re having all these conversations but
9:09
this work is the pinnacle of all of
9:11
those conversations
9:14
the idea of change it’s such a perfect
9:17
metaphor for
9:19
the entire show
9:21
where of course you know they’re shiny
9:23
they have such a presence
9:25
but at the base level for the person
9:28
wearing this it’s almost impossible to
9:31
move
9:32
i’m making this work for the viewer but
Conclusion
9:34
i want the viewer to take away
9:36
their own homework and really rethink
9:38
the negative associations to blackness
9:40
that we’ve had through the
9:43
vernacular of athleticism
9:46
yes this is a show about sports but it’s
9:48
grounding force is about race and black
9:51
bodies
9:53
i hope that people actually take
9:55
something from the show in terms of
9:57
their own preconceptions of blackness
10:00
and black people and black culture
10:32
[Music]
10:45
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