CRYSTAL Z CAMPBELL
March 15 – April 20, 2014
Opening reception, Saturday, March 15th, 6 – 8 pm
Cindy Rucker Gallery is pleased to present Crystal Z Campbell in her first solo exhibition in New York. Campbell’s work often investigates conflicting narratives and moments of confusion, which to her are ways of denying the viewer a clear interpretation of failed or traumatic historical moments.
In this exhibition, Campbell introduces many of us to Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Her genetic sample taken for initial tests on her cancer lives on as HeLa cells, the first human cells to be grown in a lab. Her unique DNA has been generated over and over, has been involved in 11,000 patents, including the polio vaccine, and launched a multi-billion dollar industry of selling human biological materials, all unbeknownst to Henrietta Lack’s family.
Driven by Henrietta Lacks’ narrative, I Live to Fight (No More) Forever is a series of mixed media works made partly in collaboration with scientists at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Grown on diamonds, the HeLa cells act as portraiture instead of medium. Campbell manipulates photographs of this imagery with paint, markers, pen and colored pencil. The work offers a different approach to the deconstructed female than the canonical male artists of the 20th century, substituting the male gaze for the scientific gaze.
Campbell’s piece, Sankofa (Go Back and Fetch It), 2013 presents a video loop of the cells on diamonds, a visual proposition of the value of forever. Taken from the Akan language of Ghana, sankofa is associated with the proverb “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” Seen through a triangular lens, Campbell focuses on the spiritual aspect of having a microscopic part of you live on forever. As Campbell explores her subject as a person never identified as such, she never tries to undermine the medical advancements these cells provided nor the complete omission of the participation of Lacks’ family.
Crystal Z Campbell (b. 1980, Prince George’s County, MD) attended Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, received an MA in Africana Studies from the University at Albany and an MFA from the University of California San Diego. Her work has been exhibited at ICA-Philadelphia, Fondazione Ratti, Studio Museum in Harlem, New Children’s Museum of San Diego, Wave Hill Garden and Cultural Center, Project Row Houses, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Harvestworks and de Appel Arts Centre among others. In 2014, Campbell will be a Sommerakademie fellow at Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland. Campbell was a Van Lier Fellow at the Whitney Museum of Art’s Independent Study Program and recently finished a two-year residency at the Rijkakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, The Netherlands where she currently lives and works.
Campbell’s ongoing project has been supported by Dr. C. Backendorf and G. Lamers at De Universiteit Leiden, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst and Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten.
Cindy Rucker Gallery is located at 141 Attorney Street just south of Stanton in New York City. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 12 – 6 pm and by appointment. For more information about this and other exhibits, please contact the gallery at 212-388-9311 or info@cindyruckergallery.com.
