Gravity Pleasure Switchback Access

Introductory Wall Text and Verbal Description

EXHIBITION WALL TEXT

Applied to the wall is black vinyl text. Above two columns of text is a heading. The heading reads:

Derrick Woods-Morrow Gravity Pleasure Switchback May 19-August 5,2023

The left column reads:

Derrick Woods-Morrow’s first major solo exhibition manifests itself as a euphoric dream state containing phases and spaces inhabited by Black American Southerners. The new works presented here stem from the artist’s observations of how various forms of desire, ranging from Black liberation, rest, the erotic, and aspirations for a good life, shift and are distributed. Woods-Morrow has converted elements from domestic life- mattresses, memories from his childhood, waste products from his body and the bodies of others- into units that unveil his interior motivations for desiring both isolation and community.

Stressing the power of interdependence, Woods-Morrow produces works that locate and entangle the exchanges of sexuality, desire, and the casual consumption of these energies. His collaborators range from strangers on the internet to friends who have all become part of his articulaton of diasporic connection and kinship. Against the pervasive climate of anti-blackness, Gravity Pleasure Switchback is grounded in the exploration of the body as a place of boundless possibility. In his queered appraisals of shifts between life and death, rest, and the hustle of everyday life, Woods-Morrow offers a space to mourn and meditate on how loss and hope are intertwined.

Below, in smaller type on the right column reads:

Support for Gravity Pleasure Switchback is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency; and the School of Art and Art History, College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts, University of Illinois Chicago.

The artist’s development of these works was directly supported by RISD Professional Development Fund and a Robert and Margaret Maccoll Johnson Fellowship.

–

Collaborators:

Gozié Ojini and K Anderson

Additional support from the RISD Glass Department ‘Hot Nights’ program run by Sean Salstrom and Jocelyn Prince. Many thanks to Woods-Morrow’s studio assistant Asher White and research assistant and fabricator Julia Helen Murray with additional support from Jane Georges, Lyza Baum, Njari Anderson, Henry “Hank” Hurst, and Spencer “Broadus” Mobbs

AUDIO FILE OF OF VERBALIZED EXHIBITION WALL LABEL

https://soundcloud.com/user-710361049/intro-wall-text-gps?in=user-710361049/sets/gravity-pleasure-switchback-derrick-woods-morrow&si=1939d8ca545d4ba78f5fd984ea8f67ee&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Southern Drift I > a beacon to true north

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Glass infused with a portion of the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was murdered, complicated feelings, the artist’s bodily fluids, wake work
2023

Verbal Description:

Six oval pieces of glass each about a foot wide and several feet long hang at various heights and angles along the left wall of the gallery. The pieces are not flat; some bend out from the wall. The glass is clear, but each piece is shot through with dark spots and whirls. Some of the ovals are darker than others.

A row of thirty-two mason jars sit flush against the back wall of the gallery. Each mason jar is filled with liquid. The liquid in each jar varies in color from a light amber to a dark brown. Every jar is filled with a different amount of liquid; some are almost full and others are almost empty. Above the jars, hangs a two-feet wide circular piece of glass. The glass is mostly clear, but bubbles and dark spots disrupt the surface.

Another row of eighteen jars encircles the base of one of the columns on the right side of the main room.

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How do we memorialize an event that is still ongoing?

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Used mattresses, various natural stains, subwoofers, wake work, looped 8:57 mins. audio track, as well as empathy, patience, time occurring unnaturally
2022-ongoing

Verbal Description:

A vertically standing mattress structure stands in the corner. The structure is formed by two twin sized mattresses, bound together by bungee cords. Nestled within the structure are two subwoofers that produce a muffled booming sound of the song “Me vs. Me.”

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Are we looking for the same plumbing?

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Copper pipes, patinated copper fasteners, the act of imagining yourself in the bedroom of the artist who is a promiscuous Black queer man, the artist’s bodily fluids
2023

Verbal description:

A rectangular structure the size of a small room made of copper pipes stands in the center of the gallery. The pipes outline the edges of the room, forming a window in the front, a large door on the right, and a small walk-in closet in the back. The copper is tarnished and variegated in color, and is darker at the joints.

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Untitled (collaboration with Gozié Ojini)

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow in collaboration with Gozié Ojini

Suitcase containing water from the Atlantic Ocean, artificial sweat, exciters, amp, and associated wires
2023

Verbal description:

In the closet area of the copper, rectangular structure is a brown, leather suitcase with gold clasps that sits on the floor. A black, circular plastic piece with valves for attachments sticks out of the back of the suitcase.

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Southern Drift II >>(confessions)

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow in collaboration with K Anderson

Analog televisions with physical intervention, K Anderson’s Southern Confessions Vol 1 (20:20 mins. looped), complicated feelings, the act of watching and being watched, wake work
2023

Six analog televisions sit on the floor within a tangle of wires. Five of the televisions face the sixth. Two of the five TVs display black and white static. Another’s screen is black. Two more have black screens with the words “GAME” and “VIDEO” displayed on them. The sixth television is playing a video.
The video starts with the bottom half of a woman’s face. She is wearing purple lipstick. Throughout the video, the voice of K Anderson, a Black woman, weaves in and out of distortion and the rap song Wetter by Twista. During the whole video, the word PLAY is doubled in the corner of the screen in green and pink. K’s hand featuring long metallic nails controls a remote that is connected to a sex toy.

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xxxThe_Pleasure_Principlexxx

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

A collection of worn textiles collected from Black folx in the American south who have endured violence, pleasure, rest, and labor (among other things), the labor of a white Jewish woman who folded, pressed and organized these textiles into a single stack, a materializing horizon, copper house paint, urine
2023-ongoing

Verbal Description:

The entire right wall of the main room of the gallery is painted copper, as is the smaller wall separating the main room from the second room. The copper varies slightly in shade. In the corner where these two walls meet stands a stack of multi-colored underwear, each folded to about seven inches square. The stack is about two and a half feet tall; it is supported by a copper pipe in the back which extends above it another two feet. Some of the underwear are worn and town, with straps and lace peeking out.

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S O S (noose / lasso)

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Rope comprised of lint collected from Black neighborhood laundromats (Providence, RI), the performance of redaction, annotation, and illumination
2023

Verbal Description:

On the walls on either side of the stainless steel bathroom stall hang loops of rope made of gray lint. Some of the loops hang by themselves; others are hung in pairs right next to each other.

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PAUSE

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Stainless Steel bathroom stall with physical intervention, iPad containing GAN of archival intervention, family photographs, buried mason jar containing the residues of loss and subsequent protests, the residue of unfinished labor, time occurring unnaturally, a prayer plant
2023

Verbal Description:

A single stainless steel bathroom stall stands in the corner with its door closed. Beneath the walls of the stall, a pile of dirt with leaves and a neon blue light on top is partially visible. Peeking through the cracks in the door, one can see a green plant with broad leaves in the dirt. The plant is surrounded by a thin, neon blue light.

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‘X’ – AN 402 | After ______ (1887)

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Seménotype (artificial light, semen, various photographic chemicals on cotton rag), time occurring unnaturally

2023

Verbal Description:
The small still from the film Untitled (Cowboy) features a young Black boy looking through binoculars. He is wearing a forest green, long-sleeved shirt and sitting on concrete steps. Behind him are the ankles of onlookers, one showing white lace and the other in blue jeans. The image is filtered in white, dark brown, and red.

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Every-body Knows

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Neon and argon gasses, lint from Black neighborhood laundromats (Providence, RI), the artist’s hospital bed sheets, lint from clothing worn by the artist while teaching at a PWI, house paint, segments of Tyler, the Creator’s HEAVEN TO ME and John Legend’s Heaven, both samples of Monk Higgins’s, Heaven Only Knows, artist’s voice as intervention, various high-end car speakers, electronics, reflections on Christina Sharpe’s use of the words “weather”, “atmosphere,” and “ecosystem”
2023

Verbal Description:

Two flat, rectangular sheets made of lint project at an angle from the wall to the floor. They are each about three feet by four feet. The sheet on the left is made up of a patchwork of smaller rectangles in varying shades of gray. The sheet on the right is more uniformly dark gray. Each sheet has holes and ragged edges. In the space beneath each sheet sit six speakers, playing an audio track featuring segments of Tyler, the Creator’s HEAVEN TO ME and John Legend’s Heaven, both samples of Monk Higgins’s, Heaven Only Knows. In the corner, two black stereos sit on top of a wooden stool.

On the wall above the sheets hang two neon signs. From right to left, they read “I AM” in dark blue block letters and “We are” in red cursive script.

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Untitled (cowboy) – Good to me as I am to you

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Projector, altered gallery floor, hand polished blackened steel, rope comprised of lint collected from Black neighborhood laundromats (Providence, RI), various worn textiles that have endured violence, pleasure, rest, and labor, time occurring unnaturally
2023
Verbal Description:

The film portion consists of archival appropriated footage from
the 1972 film Black Rodeo, 37:19 mins. Looped

On the back wall, a video shows footage of Black cowboys competing in rodeo. The footage is grainy and slowed down. There is no sound. The floor of the room is ripped out, exposing unfinished wood slats. In the middle of the floor lies a pile of metal posts and rolled up chain-link fencing. Across the entrance to the room hands a rope made of gray lint. White, triangular flags made from underwear hang from the rope like bunting.

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There are others ways of remembering the past than by speaking of it

Exhibition Wall Label with artwork specifics

Derrick Woods-Morrow

Rusted steel bedframe, neon lights and transformers, water from the Atlantic, glass infused with a portion of the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was murdered, stage light with stand and sunset filter with hand-traced drawing of a sunset, milk crates, time occurring unnaturally, believing in the possibility of a safe future
2023

Verbal Description:

In the right corner of the room is a low, rectangular piece of black foam about four and a half by six feet large. Four clear glass pieces lie haphazardly on the foam. Each looks like a distorted vessel and are shot through with varying amounts of dark spots. Another glass piece sits on the floor next to the foam; two more sit on the window ledge above it.

A tall lamp stands on the window ledge to the left of these pieces. It shines on two constructions made of gray and black plastic packing crates stacked in staircase formations. One construction stands on the window ledge. The other stands on the floor in the back corner of the room. Each construction has one distorted glass piece sitting on it.

In the left corner of the room sits a rolled-up piece of chain-link fencing. The edges of the fencing are outlined in neon red lights. The windows are completely covered, and the room is dark with a red glow from the neon.

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