Today, the Houston-based arts organization FotoFest announced the artists that will be included in its 2022 Biennial art exhibition, If I Had a Hammer. The show is scheduled to open on September 24 and run through November 6, and is co-curated by the organization’s Director, Steven Evans, Associate Curator and Director of Publishing, Max Fields, and independent curator and former director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Amy Sadao.
Yazan Khalili, detail shot of “Medusa,” 2020, 6 channel video installation and mixed media. Courtesy of the artist.
If I Had a Hammer’s title is a reference to a 1949 folk song by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, which later became synonymous with the Civil Rights movement. The show will explore how images create, inform, and respond to social movements and political ideologies. The 23 artists in the exhibition come from a range of practices and backgrounds: some create more documentary-like work, others have a research-based approach, and others are social practice, video, or performance artists. According to FotoFest, the artists “propose alternative ways to understand and participate with society, working in both conventional and unorthodox media to explore the formation of historical narratives, political ideology, and agency.”
The three co-curators of the Biennial commented on their goal for this year’s show, saying in part: ” It is our intention that this year’s Biennial will present an opportunity to our visitors to explore the social textures of contemporary and historical image-making practices while celebrating Houston’s arts community.”
Artists that will be featured in the Biennial exhibition include:
Laura Aguilar
Mónica Alcázar-Duarte
Chow and Lin
Forensic Architecture
Elaine W. Ho
Ho Rui An
Jibade-Khalil Huffman
David Kelley
Yazan Khalili
Ryan Patrick Krueger
Dorothea Lange
Dionne Lee
Tōyō Miyatake
Delilah Montoya
Reynier Leyva Novo
Lorraine O’Grady
Mike Osborne
Liz Rodda
Keisha Scarville
Ines Schaber
Fred Schmidt-Arenales, in collaboration with David Ramírez Cotón, Daniel Hernández-Salazar, Camilla Juárez, and Jorge de León
Jonathan David Smyth
Bruce Yonemoto
Delilah Montoya, “Casta 2,” from the series “Contemporary Casta Portraiture: Nuestra Calidad,” 2018, dye sublimation on metal, wooden curio box, laser-etching, sand, QR code. Courtesy of the artist.
Five artists in the Biennial will be creating new commissions for the show: Elaine W. Ho, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Dionne Lee, Liz Rodda and Fred Schmidt-Arenales. Other FotoFest-organized shows that will be on view this fall include a re-presentation of its 2020 Biennial, African Cosmologies: Redux, curated by Mark Sealy, and the new exhibition Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2020–21, which will feature work by Nick Block, Zana Briski, Alejandro González, Will Harris, Hillerbrand+Magsamen, Gregory Eddi Jones, Irolan Maroselli, Theresa Newsome, C. Rose Smith, and Larry Smukler.
Additionally, participating venues throughout Texas, including museums, galleries, and nonprofits, will participate in the Biennial by hosting image-based shows this fall.
For more information, and to see a list of participating spaces and programming related to the upcoming Biennial, please go here.
