White Columns Online #20:
Bone Black
curated by Jenée-Daria Strand

March 31, 2022–April 30, 2022 Online
Vertically stacked cassette tapes, a record sleeve, and a personal transistor radio are placed on top of a brown speaker set against a white wall. Tapes include Anita Baker and Evelyn “Champagne” King, among others, and the record sleeve shows the upside down image of a woman’s face with her tongue out.

Jen Everett
Unheard Sounds, Come Through – Act 2 (Detail), 2019
Found objects
Variable
Courtesy of the artist.

Two side-by-side vertical panels show layered arrangements of intergenerational family photos. Some are singular portraits and others capture groups or pairs of people, and they vary between black-and-white and color images.

Jen Everett
Untitled, 2018
Digital Collage
Variable
Courtesy of the artist.

An abstract construction of cardboard triangles. Each triangle face shows a fragment various photographic portraits.

Jen Everett
Untitled, 2016
Photographs, cardboard
Courtesy of the artist.

Two pieces of fabric are draped on a white wall. The fabric above has a blue, cloudy sky and black power-lines printed on it and one of its bottom corners is tucked into the top edge to create a fold. The bottom fabric is brown with a raw, fraying edge at the bottom.

Mandy Franca
In A State of Being II, 2021
Silk Satin, voile, oil pastels, c-type
Variable
Courtesy of the artist.

Three pieces of fabric are layered together on a white wall, increasing in height and decreasing in width from back to front. At the back is a piece with a blue cloudy sky printed on it, followed by one depicting a dark sky with golden clouds, and a translucent, darkly colored fabric is on top.

Mandy Franca
In A State of Being III, 2021
Silk Satin, voile, oil pastels, oil stick, c-type
Variable
Courtesy of the artist.

Participating Artists

Jen Everett
Mandy Franca

Exhibition Description

Bone Black utilizes the virtual space to question the future of personal history and collective memory within the digital age. The exhibition pairs two artists, Jen Everett and Mandy Franca, whose works explore the presentation of identity through their chosen materials: found objects, photographs, and textile.

Jen Everett unveils the intimacy of Black interiority. Everett encourages the viewer to consider the physical interior as a mirror and an altar; a reflection of self, and a collection of all things sacred and significant. The meticulous arrangement of such private spaces are museums in their own right––they display identity, collect history, and hold space for the performance of cultural traditions. Everett simultaneously looks to the imagined interior through collaged vernacular photographs.

Mandy Franca’s sculptural wall pieces display the ways in which legacy is intertwined with tangibility. Franca’s work nods to spaces, both private and public, in which one’s ‘mark’ is left as a signifier of one’s existence. The artist seeks to question: how can one’s digital archive serve as a representation of identity and culture?

Drawn from bell hooks’ 1996 memoir “Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood” the title references the text’s thematic essence: hooks’ compiled threads of recollecting her adolescence, and the role of literary escapism in crafting a “cave of self creation.” Through this exhibition, I question: can digital realms accurately replicate one’s cultural lineage and cave of self creation?

Jenée-Daria Strand has served as the Curatorial Assistant of the Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum since 2019, where she has worked on numerous exhibitions including “Lorraine O’Grady/Both And.” Jenée is a Masters Candidate at New York University and holds a BFA in Dance from Florida State University.

This exhibition is the twentieth in a series of online exhibitions curated exclusively from White Columns’ Curated Artist Registry.

Vertically stacked cassette tapes, a record sleeve, and a personal transistor radio are placed on top of a brown speaker set against a white wall. Tapes include Anita Baker and Evelyn “Champagne” King, among others, and the record sleeve shows the upside down image of a woman’s face with her tongue out.
Two side-by-side vertical panels show layered arrangements of intergenerational family photos. Some are singular portraits and others capture groups or pairs of people, and they vary between black-and-white and color images.
An abstract construction of cardboard triangles. Each triangle face shows a fragment various photographic portraits.
Two pieces of fabric are draped on a white wall. The fabric above has a blue, cloudy sky and black power-lines printed on it and one of its bottom corners is tucked into the top edge to create a fold. The bottom fabric is brown with a raw, fraying edge at the bottom.
Three pieces of fabric are layered together on a white wall, increasing in height and decreasing in width from back to front. At the back is a piece with a blue cloudy sky printed on it, followed by one depicting a dark sky with golden clouds, and a translucent, darkly colored fabric is on top.

Jen Everett Unheard Sounds, Come Through – Act 2 (Detail), 2019 Found objects Variable Courtesy of the artist. (Vertically stacked cassette tapes, a record sleeve, and a personal transistor radio are placed on top of a brown speaker set against a white wall. Tapes include Anita Baker and Evelyn “Champagne” King, among others, and the record sleeve shows the upside down image of a woman’s face with her tongue out.)

Jen Everett Untitled, 2018 Digital Collage Variable Courtesy of the artist. (Two side-by-side vertical panels show layered arrangements of intergenerational family photos. Some are singular portraits and others capture groups or pairs of people, and they vary between black-and-white and color images.)

Jen Everett Untitled, 2016 Photographs, cardboard Courtesy of the artist. (An abstract construction of cardboard triangles. Each triangle face shows a fragment various photographic portraits.)

Mandy Franca In A State of Being II, 2021 Silk Satin, voile, oil pastels, c-type Variable Courtesy of the artist. (Two pieces of fabric are draped on a white wall. The fabric above has a blue, cloudy sky and black power-lines printed on it and one of its bottom corners is tucked into the top edge to create a fold. The bottom fabric is brown with a raw, fraying edge at the bottom.)

Mandy Franca In A State of Being III, 2021 Silk Satin, voile, oil pastels, oil stick, c-type Variable Courtesy of the artist. (Three pieces of fabric are layered together on a white wall, increasing in height and decreasing in width from back to front. At the back is a piece with a blue cloudy sky printed on it, followed by one depicting a dark sky with golden clouds, and a translucent, darkly colored fabric is on top.)