Recess: A Group Exhibition

Samuel Levi Jones is known for working with deconstructed books, and his prints reference the same imagery and concept. Jones selects and disassembles seemingly objective and authoritative texts like encyclopedias, exposing subjective and exclusionary practices that perpetuate social and racial inequities. With similar grid-like compositions, subtle contrasts of bright and neutral colors, and worn frayed-edge textures, the prints recall his assemblages made from fabric book covers sans their pages of text. In process and presentation, Jones subjectively withholds information from viewers just as these sources exclude certain facts from their compendiums. Luring viewers with formal order, the images prompt questions about the limitations of comprehensive texts and the ways in which knowledge is controlled and framed.

Jones earned an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California in 2012 and currently lives and works in Chicago. He was awarded the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize whose past recipients include Glenn Ligon and Lorna Simpson. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States, including solo exhibitions at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art and the Studio Museum, and is included in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Miami’s Rubell Family Collection, LACMA, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

 Motivated by his upbringing in a family of fourth-generation tombstone artisans, Jaydan Moore’s works harken to early experiences around the family business. Of these influences, Moore cites impactful memories of rummaging through other people’s belongings in the business’ rental storage space, and listening in on families making arrangements for their loved ones. Moore’s oeuvre expounds upon this “exploration of heirlooms”, as his works meditate upon the historical, functional, valuable and personal boundaries of such objects in the way they are handed down, utilized and transformed over the years. By deconstructing and reassembling found silver-plated tableware into new forms, Moore thus mirrors an individual’s ability to do the same with their own memories. These new forms exist as tomes to all of the past incarnations of these objects, resulting in commemorative vessels taking on new life. Summer Days will include selections of both Moore’s silver sculpture as well as his intaglio prints.

Moore earned his BA from California College of the Arts, in Oakland, and received his MFA and MA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has shown in recent exhibitions at Design/Miami (FL), Basel (SWI), and Cheongju Craft Biennale (South Korea). He has also held teaching appointments at Rhode Island School of Design, California College of the Arts, the Penland School of Crafts, and is currently an Adjunct Faculty at VCU.