Letter from the Editor

Photo: Nando Alvarez-Perez

Most days in the United States, it is hard to shake the feeling that history is people waking up every single day and not understanding how they got there. But what are we all to do: we woke up like this! On those days, I find myself just trying to keep faith in time’s dialectic: history will make every garden a graveyard; every graveyard, a garden.

In Buffalo, of course, we are at something of a cultural cusp: the Buffalo AKG Art Museum is reopening this summer. It is hard to overstate the importance of this institution to the region’s art community. Those of us who grew up in Buffalo going to the former Albright-Knox have all been weaned on Rothko’s Orange and Yellow (1956), on Pollock’s drip paintings, and on the post-war narrative of an elite avant-garde, manfully throwing themselves against their canvases in pursuit of a novel American art. It is a narrative tied as much into Buffalo’s sense of self as it is a global story of the expansion of American hegemony. The obverse of this story is the depoliticization of art, of artists turning away from state supported projects aimed at the working class and instead aiming to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of America’s burgeoning middle and upper class. The result of this long trend — at least in the mainstream, globalized art world — has been a return to a notion of art that predates the French Revolution: art as design, art as signifier of wealth, power, cultural and economic distinction. It will be compelling to see the AKG address this history at a moment that begs for art to change, for it to move beyond the narrow limits of spectacularization and financialization that it has set for itself.

This issue of Cornelia is preoccupied with change: changing historical narratives, changing seasons, changing lives. Anna Mirzayan reflects on the public/ private dynamics at work in Buffalo-native Tara Fay Coleman’s recent exhibition of oversized iPhone notes at Pittsburgh’s here Gallery. From Toronto, Ashley Culver addresses a rotating exhibition at Joy’s timed to the shifting of seasons. Dallas Fellini critiques the troubled transition of moving the work of G.B. Jones from the queer underground to the contemporary art world. Erika Verhagen examines the contradictory needs and desires for public art. And M. Delmonico Connolly talks to George Afedzi Hughes about what it takes to perpetually reimagine his painting practice as he’s moved from Ghana to Buffalo, from warehouse worker to university professor.

Photo: Nando Alvarez-Perez

Tucked inside of this issue, you may also find a regional art guide, the production of which has been very generously supported by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. A huge thank you is due to our friends there, and we hope this guide will help you get the most out of the region’s art offerings this summer. Additional thank yous are due to Mark Yappueying, our bottomlessly talented designer; to Emily Mangione, whose keen edits make every issue sparkle; and to Way2WavyBaby, BICA Intern Gallery Assistant and Generator Grant Coordinator, who went above and beyond in seeking visual material for this issue.

Nando Alvarez-Perez

Editor-in-Chief

Published by
The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art

Editor-in-Chief
Nando Alvarez-Perez

Producer
Emily Ebba Reynolds

Copy Editor
Emily E. Mangione

Design
Mark Yappueying

Intern
Way2WavyBaby

Contributing Writers

M. Delmonico Connolly, Ashley Culver, Dallas Fellini, Anna Mirzayan, Erika Verhagen