Best Exhibition Triad

photo of Pat Evans by Anthony Barboza, from 'Posing Beauty'

AfroFantastic and The Black Figure in the European Imaginary

Cornell Museum of Fine Art, cfam.rollins.edu

Posing Beauty

Snap! Space and Snap! Downtown, snaporlando.com

Museum life in Orlando began 2017 with an unparalleled triple whammy against the status quo, inspiring a reappraisal of the white gaze and a centering of blackness. The historic documentation of Cornell Fine Arts Museum's The Black Figure in the European Imaginary, installed side-by-side with the modern and futuristic AfroFantastic: Black Imagination and Agency in the American Experience, as well as Snap! Orlando's trove of portraits Posing Beauty in African American Culture, drew a representational beeline from the lens of white perception to empowerment through self-portrayal, then fantastically on to magical ideals entirely independent of whiteness.

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Best Young Artist Putting Orlando on the Map: Dana Hargrove

image courtesy artist

Dana Hargrove shoots some of her work hanging at OMA

danahargrove.com

Dana Hargrove's Scottish roots transplanted quickly to Central Florida, but she still says "Orlgh-lannndo" with a delightful Edinburgh burr. Exhibiting around the country and recently back from an artist's residency in Iceland, Hargrove's crisply colored cairns were selected for this year's Florida Prize in Contemporary Art show at the Orlando Museum of Art. Ancient Scottish rockpiles inspire Hargrove's contemporary notions of urbanity, social ties and globalism, and that's not just clarty blether, laddie. (Read our interview with the artist here.)

Best Performance Art as Group Catharsis: Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz's Pietà, March 21, 2017

Image: Best performance art 
as group catharsis

Photo by Bernard Wilchusky / UCF

wandaraimundi-ortiz.com

Back in March, UCF professor Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz stopped time and carved out a space to collectively mourn the ongoing loss of young people of color to bias crimes with her 90-minute endurance performance Pietà. Reflecting the maternal gesture of the work's sculptural namesake, Raimundi-Ortiz cradled 33 volunteer participants with infectious tenderness and vulnerability as DJ Stereo 77 queued quintessential R&B, Afrobeat, jazz and soul truncated by the sounds of sirens. Pews in the Knowles Memorial Chapel were filled with witnesses to the raw pain of grief and to the artist's resilience. Our hearts are full knowing that she went on to perform Pietà at the National Portrait Gallery just two months later. (See our article on Pietà here.)