BLACK SKY
Charlie James Gallery is delighted to present BLACK SKY, Sadie Barnette’s second solo show at the gallery, opening October 20th.
Words on the show from the artist:
“I made this show even though I didn’t think I could. I didn’t want to. Everything sucks. I made this show by leaning back on those that came before me and drawing their breath through my lungs, puffing my chest out, pretending I could. I made this show even though it feels like the end of the world. Because I think this might also be what the beginning feels like. A glittering rage, a head full of history but still laughing and bothering to paint my nails, to show up, to show out, to embody.
I made this show for my ancestors. And for Drake. I made this show for Little Rodney, and cousin David. There they are in my Dad’s quintessential 70’s dinning room, looking at the camera, not knowing their lives will be cut short - but looking like they understand everything. In two new large scale works I continue my investigation of the 500-page FBI surveillance file kept on my father, Rodney Barnette, who founded the Compton, California, chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968. My glittering holographic redactions propose a counter-surveillance, a resistance and a restorative technology. A lightbox image of a street sign bearing the name of Martin Luther King Jr., set against a galactic sky, imagines a black space beyond gentrification and police violence and volunteers to follow Sun Ra from Oakland to the stars. I’ve also included in this show my first video work - a medium that is making a strong case for itself in my practice.
This is the offering. It’s not everything. I wish I had done more. I already regret things I haven't yet not done. But I made this show because I still believe in love and magic and playing beyond language and saying cheers before you drink. Because there is hope in the unknown and peace under the black sky.”
— Sadie Barnette, October 2018
Sadie Barnette (b. 1984) is from Oakland, CA. She earned her BFA from CalArts and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally at venues including The Studio Museum in Harlem (where she was Artist in Residence), the California African American Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, The Mistake Room in Los Angeles, and Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa. Barnette has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian UK, Artforum, Vogue, and Forbes, among other publications. Her work is in the permanent collections of museums such as LACMA, Berkeley Art Museum, the Blanton Museum at UT Austin, the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, the California African American Museum, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Barnette lives and works in Oakland, CA and Compton, CA and is represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles.
Selected Works
Installation
