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The Arts Intel Report

John Edmonds: A Sidelong Glance

Oct 23, 2020 – Aug 8, 2021
200 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11238, USA

In the arresting photographic portraiture of Black artist John Edmonds, Central and West African relics collide with people from Edmonds’s creative community. In Two Spirits, for instance, a man sits on a stool, his face concealed by the eerie superimposition of a beaked wood mask. In another image, a tug of war over a Baule carved statue poses a question about African art, its acquisition and appropriation by other cultures. “I hope this work can exist as a threshold for museums and other cultural institutions,” Edmonds says of his show, “to move forward with equity and repair.” —E.C.

John Edmonds, “Two Spirits,” 2020. Courtesy of the artist and the Company © John Edmonds.