A Culture of Conversation
Outmoded Shapes
“ACRE and Blanc Gallery are excited to present Outmoded Shapes, a three-person exhibition of work by Ricki Dwyer, John Alleyne, and Zachary Nicol curated by Rohan Ayinde that examines the conditions and structures in which bodies are made while offering modes for rupturing and rethinking them.
Loosely woven out of a series of Zoom calls over the past 7 months, the exhibition is contextualized by 4 key texts. They are the anchors in the show’s dialogue, orienting and giving shape to the work without defining the way it should be engaged with. A passage about the feminine power of the erotic from Audre Lorde opens out onto Gordon Hall’s discussion on materializing bodies through ritual. bell hooks remind us that masculinity is learned and practiced just as Mlondolozi Zondi analyzes the aesthetics of Afro-pessimism in Black performance. This symphony of ideas sounds the space between Zach, Ricki, and John. They have listened to one another and in so doing begun to make sense of the shapes they are each grappling with – gender, class, race, masculinity, performance, identity. They make visible for one another the forms that they feel bound by and against which they are pushing.”