EDGAR ARCENEAUX

‘Untitled (2007), on view from the Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody, is a charcoal drawing of a shark head that seems to come into frame from above. Splattered over with the red spray paint, the work is ominous and foreboding. It speaks of a violence that has just occurred or may be about to occur. Instead of emerging from the depths, the shark seems to descend towards us from above—a sign of a world reversed. 

Edgar Arceneaux investigates historical patterns through drawings, installations, and multimedia events, such as the reenactment of Ben Vereen’s tragically misunderstood blackface performance at Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Inaugural Gala. In the artist’s work, linear logic is abandoned in favor of wordplay and visual associations, revealing how language, technology, and systems of ordering produce reality as much as describe them. Seemingly disparate elements—such as science fiction, civil rights era speeches, techno music, and the crumbling architecture of Detroit—find a new synchronicity in the artist’s hands, ultimately pointing to larger historical forces such as the rise of the surveillance state. Arceneaux’s installations have taken the form of labyrinths, libraries, multi-channel videos, and drawn landscapes that change over the course of an exhibition, only ever offering a partial view of the whole at any given moment. This fragmentation extends to the artist’s use of historical research in his work, such as FBI documents concerning civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., where redacted passages are presented on mirrors that reflect the viewer’s curious gaze.