Susan Inglett Gallery is pleased to present WILLIAM VILLALONGO at The Armory Show 2021.  Villalongo has been selected for inclusion in the FOCUS section of the Fair, curated by Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.  The work will be on view in Booth F8 at the Jacob Javitz Center from 9 September, 2021 through 12 September, 2021.

 Across painting, sculpture, and cut-velvet paper collage, William Villalongo explores how to best represent the Black subject against the backdrop of race in America. The artist is the recipient of both the prestigious 2021 Rome Prize and the 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC among others.

Gold chains inhabit a place in African American popular culture as “bling” or “drip." Originally a means to hold on to monetary value, the practice of wearing gold chains became popularized within hip-hop culture during the late ‘70s and ‘80s and endures today in Black culture. For the artist growing up, gold chains had many levels of significance from expressions of power, style and cool to memories of adolescent courtship rituals exchanging chains as a visible sign of affection. 

Still Life with Quilt and Drinking Gourds and Still Life with Aquarium directly references European and Dutch still life painting from the colonial era, a genre known as “memento mori” that pointed metaphorically to human mortality in a rich display of colonial plunder. Usually thought of as benign grouping of objects, the artist sees in these paintings stories of colonialism, ill-gotten gains and Black labor. Often, the work incorporated images of Black “servant boys,” just visible outside the frame deployed to serve as symbol of the European subject’s wealth. Such paintings express the paradoxical visibility and invisibility of Black people within the European colonial world.

In Still Life with Quilt and Drinking Gourds, the artist explores how seemingly innocent objects can be used to tell a freighted story. The rich velvet ground enfolds histories and narratives within a space of blackness, unlinked from time and place. From a dimly lit background emerges a white-gloved hand draped with a quilt in lieu of the traditional liteau. Below, a silver platter is littered with drinking gourds, a star map, nautical telescope, rotting bananas and a photograph of Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura of the “Star Trek” television series.

The tableau features objects used to navigate by the stars and to way-find, conjuring images of Black migration and the Underground Railroad. The quilted waiter’s napkin suggests the patterned quilts used to signal safe houses along the Underground Railroad. It has been posited that specific messages were hidden in the geometry of these quilts. The pattern shown here was known as the “Lincoln platform,” developed in honor of President Lincoln’s inauguration. A portrait of Lieutenant Uhura from “Star Trek,” is featured in this painting alongside the gourds which symbolized the Big Dipper, a navigational device on the Underground Railroad. Nichelle Nichols' character first appeared on the series in 1966, and was ground breaking in many ways, most notably for the first on-screen interracial kiss. For the artist, she represents the furthest reaches of the Black imagination. In the face of a world which to this day tries to extinguish Black lives, Uhura showed us a future with a Black woman in charge.

Still Life with Aquarium  features an invisible white-gloved servant, presenting a silver domed dish of lobster and a fish bowl, presumably to his colonizer.  An inverted African sculpture acts as décor for tropical fish, the lobster holds on for dear life.  Were it not for the incongruity of these objects, little attention would be paid to either subject, white gloved, red clawed or otherwise.  Further consideration rewards the careful viewer with an abundance of signs and symbols of the Black Atlantic, representing notions of Black labor, the objects and lives lost, but also liberation and survival.  Still Life with Aquarium serves to remind us not only of the fragility of human life but the fragility of human history, as it is told and reconsidered. 

Feast with Nkisi is a painting about conflict, conquest, and memorial presented as feast. On a silver platter, symbols of colonial power are balanced by stolen objects of cultural significance. The nkisi nkondi figure, a source of spiritual and physical healing, is represented lying down. Its position symbolizes its diminished status as an object of conquest. The nkisi figure’s healing power is further complicated here by the gun that acts as pillow. The sextant just behind the nkisi is a navigational device that dates back to the late 17th century. It is primarily used for celestial navigation, measuring the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon to measure latitude, altitude, or position on an aeronautical or nautical chart. The Dutch flowers and Olde English malt liquor refererence colonial power. Olde English malt liquor was also the preferred drink of early 90's gangster rappers. The hanging shoes are a nod to the practice of tossing shoes over a power line in memorial. The cheese, carrots, and ducks refer to monetary gain, the latter an appropriation from the Flemish painter Justus Sustermans' Still Life with Two Wild Ducks Hung Up, 1640. Garlic, peeled orange and prosciutto round out the feast.

Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee contrasts Western and African notions of male beauty, masculinity, and power. Here, Villalongo presents a visual collision within the figure incorporating images of Michelangelo's David alongside power figures from many African cultures. The Renaissance marble sculpture, set against the black velvet background, stands out in its stark whiteness. Each artist represents power in ways specific to their respective culture. Michelangelo's David relays the parable of David and Goliath, an example of heart and courage prevailing over physical strength. The "power figures," found in a number of African cultures, are thought to contain great spiritual and healing powers.  

These interpretations of power, taken from both Western art history and the African diaspora, connect with the Muhammad Ali quote found in the title of Villalongo's work. Images of bees and butterflies join sculptural icons to form the body, while the head is demarcated by a boxing helmet. Three-dimensional drinking gourds, strung together with beads and flocked in black velvet and glitter, are clasped firm in hand. "Muhammad Ali's quote is also about strength and wisdom in life as much as it encapsulates his boxing strategy," says Villalongo. "For Black people, it works well as a life lesson. For me, it's also another instance where cycles of nature and pollination are used as metaphors for resilience and grace under pressure. I make these contrasts to remind the viewer that we are more the same than different."