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Image of bedspread rippled with very dark shadows and highlights in grey tones

Wilmer Wilson IV: "To lessen the demand of visibility"

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Wilmer Wilson IV, 05:56 (2009-10), silver gelatin print, 10x8 in. Courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery.

 

April 13–June 3, 2022

Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery


Closing Reception: Friday, June 3
5-7 pm, Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
 

The Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of University of the Arts is pleased to present an installation of the work of Wilmer Wilson IV. The works in this exhibit span multiple years, and the show’s title To lessen the demand of visibility succinctly encapsulates Wilson’s aims over the past decade. As Wilson states, “The aim has always been to lessen the demand of visibility on bodies specifically, and to make use of pedestrian objects from public and domestic spheres to create barriers, viewing devices and/or mediating layers that modulate an audience's relationship to the bodies imaged or implied beyond said layers.”

Appropriating everyday objects that constitute, “the marginal shadows of collective life's grand narratives,” Wilson has obsessively utilized materials such as brown paper bags, stickers, postage stamps and discarded lottery tickets. Surfaces, i.e. skin, have been used as an artificial means for social control. In several performances, Wilson covered his nude body with stamps creating another layer, another second skin, not as mere covering but as a means to historic referents. For example, in 2012, Wilson covered his body in postage stamps in his performance Henry “Box” Brown: FOREVER and attempted to mail himself as a reference to Henry Brown, an enslaved Virginia man who mailed himself to freedom in Pennsylvania in 1848. 

Wilson is concerned with “the way that marginalized bodies are shaped in and by city space” and interested in “producing possibilities for representation that are materially specific and exist apart from global advertising strategies.” His signature use of staples is redolent of accumulations on urban kiosks and utility pole postings and the repetitive actions involved in manual labor. In Wilson’s work we record many layers of information and a decentering of the subject; the unique process involved in obsessive stapling to the signifiers below the metal and the partial obliteration of those images blown up from found urban flyers and pamphlets. This overall obscurant field of metal belies a mistrust of received hegemonic icons; an obliteration of published information that also resonates in Mark Bradford’s collage paintings. 

Accompanying the sculptures will be a series of gelatin silver prints from Wilson’s series Bedspread Iterations (2009-2010). Created by cutting and printing 35mm photographic negatives of his bedding in disarray, they resemble Deleuze exercises in the informal “which is not the negation of form; it posits form as folded, as existing only as ‘mental landscape.’” Because they no longer retain the set format of the film frame, they are lacerated indexes between the territories of photograph and collage, document and abstraction; they read like homages to James Welling’s photographs of crumpled aluminum foil. Tossed haphazardly, they are timestamped as if to speak to the ephemeral temporal nature of life. In our post-Covid era with fragile peace, they presciently speak of our times.

All Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery exhibitions are free and open to the public.

 

Detail image of artwork that has a color image almost obscured by staples

Wilmer Wilson IV, SEASONS (detail).
Courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery.


 

Gallery
Installation image of two large works hanging caddy-corner from one another

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view with large floor length wall work in right foreground, wooden columns with images in background

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view with two large wall works to the right, a wooden column with images to the left

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Three wooden columns in a row with different posters with people that are covered in tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Four wooden columns in gallery, with posters of people on them, covered in tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of wooden columns with posters covered in tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of wooden column works covered in posters, some covered in tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Closer image of wooden column with poster of man's face covered in tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Two wooden columns with posters and tacks, one in foreground, one in background

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of one wooden column with poster covered in clear and red tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two wooden columns with posters covered in tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of row of framed work across two connecting walls

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of row of framed work on wall

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation image showing framed work in row across three walls

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of framed works across four walls

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

image of series of works hanging in row on two intersecting walls

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of series of framed works across three walls

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close up image of face on poster covered in clear tacks and one yellow tack

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close up image of column with a picture of someone's face covered in white printer paper, except for the eyes

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close up image of woman's face on column, covered in clear tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close up image of poster on column showing man's face and hand, covered in clear tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close up of red and clear tacks obscuring image on wooden column

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close up image of person holding face between their two hands, covered in clear tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Another installation view of two wooden columns, showing a different angle and images on said columns

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Image of single wooden column with poster covered in red and clear tacks with one framed work on background wall

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Single wooden column with poster covered in clear tacks, with partially visible large wall work in background

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of four wooden columns covered in posters and tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

two wooden columns with images covered in tacks, one in foreground with seated figures, one in background with red and clear tacks

Installation view. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation image of two large works hanging caddy-corner from one another
Installation view with large floor length wall work in right foreground, wooden columns with images in background
Installation view with two large wall works to the right, a wooden column with images to the left
Three wooden columns in a row with different posters with people that are covered in tacks
Four wooden columns in gallery, with posters of people on them, covered in tacks
Installation view of wooden columns with posters covered in tacks
Installation view of wooden column works covered in posters, some covered in tacks
Closer image of wooden column with poster of man's face covered in tacks
Two wooden columns with posters and tacks, one in foreground, one in background
Installation view of one wooden column with poster covered in clear and red tacks
Installation view of two wooden columns with posters covered in tacks
Installation view of row of framed work across two connecting walls
Installation view of row of framed work on wall
Installation image showing framed work in row across three walls
Installation view of framed works across four walls
image of series of works hanging in row on two intersecting walls
Installation view of series of framed works across three walls
Close up image of face on poster covered in clear tacks and one yellow tack
Close up image of column with a picture of someone's face covered in white printer paper, except for the eyes
Close up image of woman's face on column, covered in clear tacks
Close up image of poster on column showing man's face and hand, covered in clear tacks
Close up of red and clear tacks obscuring image on wooden column
Close up image of person holding face between their two hands, covered in clear tacks
Another installation view of two wooden columns, showing a different angle and images on said columns
Image of single wooden column with poster covered in red and clear tacks with one framed work on background wall
Single wooden column with poster covered in clear tacks, with partially visible large wall work in background
Installation view of four wooden columns covered in posters and tacks
two wooden columns with images covered in tacks, one in foreground with seated figures, one in background with red and clear tacks

About the Artist


Born in Richmond, VA, Wilmer Wilson IV received his BFA in photography from Howard University in 2012 and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015.

A resident of Philadelphia, Wilmer was a 2017 recipient of a Pew Fellowship and a 2014 Fellowship to the American Academy in Rome. His work has been shown at Lehigh University (2022); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2021); the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2021);  the New Orleans Museum of Art (2019); New Museum Triennial (2018); the Armory Show (2018); Barnes Foundation (2017); Flanders Field Museum, Belgium (2017); Birmingham Museum of Art, AL (2017); The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2015); and the National Portrait Gallery (2015). His work is in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; New Orleans Museum of Art; and the Phillips Collection, among others. 

At University of the Arts, Wilson performed in the Pew-funded School for Temporary Liveness at the Art Alliance in 2019 and in Alex da Corte’s reenactment of Allan Kaprow’s Chicken in 2020.

Wilmer Wilson IV is represented by Susan Inglett Gallery in New York and CONNERSMITH in Washington DC. 

 

 

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