(At Home) On Art and Worldbuilding: Artist Talk with Jacolby Satterwhite

Conceptual artist Jacolby Satterwhite creates epic imagined worlds using digital animation, virtual reality, sculpture, choreography, and performance, dubbed “wildly ingenious” by The New Yorker. He draws on the visual language of video games, Afrofuturism, queer theory, and his own familial archive to create moving image installations that explore issues of labor, sexuality, and fantasy.

Last year, The New York Times named Satterwhite’s exhibition We Are in Hell When We Hurt Each Other one of the defining moments in art in 2020. The show brought together works in a variety of artistic media that explored modes of political resistance in a post-pandemic world.

Often working between art and pop culture, Satterwhite was celebrated for his 2019 collaboration with musician Solange on her visual album, When I Get Home.

Satterwhite joins Hirshhorn associate curator Marina Isgro for a look into the personal stories, artistic references, and critical perspectives behind the artist’s dizzyingly rich moving image installations.

Jacolby Satterwhite’s Birds in Paradise (2019) was recently approved for acquisition into the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection by the Museum’s Board of Trustees. You can watch the work online now through June 11 as part of Lost in Place: Voyages in Video, the Hirshhorn’s new online screening series.

This virtual event is part of Talking to Our Time. the Hirshhorn’s online series of free artist talks featuring a diverse group of artists and collectives. View all events!

This event is also part of #HirshhornInsideOut, the Museum’s initiative to bring art into your home.

 

Image: Sam Waxman
Image: Still of Birds in Paradise, 2019© Jacolby Satterwhite. Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York