‘Existing between two worlds’: Artists share inspiration behind new Modern exhibit

Inside one chamber of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, gallery walls normally painted white instead feature a deep cobalt hue.

Hanging on the walls is a series of four works by twin brothers Erick and Elliot Jiménez, completing the exhibition they call “Blue Chapel (Rejection, Acceptance, Advocacy, Interdependence).” Each piece on the blue walls features a figure shrouded in shadow with glowing white eyes that pierce the darkness as well as a stark, pale hand reaching into the frame.

Blue tapered candles with charred wicks flank either side of each custom frame.

The series is part of a larger body of work exploring the transom between Catholicism and Yoruba religions, both of which are represented in the series.

“These figures exist within the shadow realm, and basically it’s actually existing between two worlds, very much like us being first-generation Cuban American, twins, bilingual speakers, coming from Cuban and Afro-Cuban parentage, always exploring the world and sort of in various places or in between places,” Erick Jiménez said.

The otherworldly themes continue throughout the other galleries in the Modern Art Museum’s newest exhibition, “Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940.”

However, each artist in the show juxtaposes the real with their own unreal takes, executed on many different textures.

The show begins with a collection of Myrlande Constant’s tapestries, intricately woven with sequins, beads and shells.

As patrons move through the gallery, flowers with a yellow base and pink petals that flare like the bell of a trumpet blanket the floor in a hand-painted homage to Caribbean Roble trees from Allora & Calzadilla.

In another space, a statue honoring the abolitionist Sojourner Truth stands strong, composed of bicycle tubes, cable ties, and recycled car and motorcycle tires.

“I wanted to give her a moment for her to let her own hair down, but also to utilize all the aspects of mobility, the car tire, a bicycle … to move forward,” New York artist Kim Dacres explained. “What you see in the gears is her speaking the … language of revolution, of movement, a peaceful way of insisting that Black women are here and that they are entitled and deserve the same rights as anyone else in this nation or in this world.”

Curator María Elena Ortiz learned about surrealism in graduate school, but the texts she studied were mainly focused on European creators, she said. But the artistic movement stretches far beyond Europe, dating from when philosophers and artists fled Nazi-controlled countries.

This exhibition is a corrective to the curator’s early exposure, showcasing the vibrant surrealist scene in the Caribbean and African diaspora.

“The show is really a provocation of that,” Ortiz said. “If surrealism is this idea in which two dreams, two spiritualities, (that) through alluding to the unconscious, we can achieve a higher self-image, creativity,” Ortiz said. “(Then) an iteration of that dream was happening where a group of enslaved people … starts engaging with the spirit and then they decide to take over the masters in the Haitian Revolution.”

Though the exhibition taps into the deep history within the movement, viewers do not have to be well-versed on surrealism to appreciate the show. 

“Some of the work is just really nice to just look at,” Ortiz continued. “You as a viewer, you have that choice to just look and enjoy and be seduced by the beauty. … And if you want to go deeper or not, you can. … There are a lot of moments here for that invitation.”

Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board.

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