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News + Watch at WKYC Tuesday, August 27, 2024 Kohl Executive Director Megan Lykins Reich and moCa Board Vice-President and LMM Vice President, Development & Communications discuss the exhibition A PLACE meant , the work of LMM, and the role art has in building dialogue for change. Previous Next

Feb 2-May 26, 2024 BlackBrain SCRD GRDN Feb 2-May 26, 2024 BlackBrain, Diamond Heart , mural in process, 2024. SCRD GRDN is a new project by BlackBrain and guest artists from Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, Unidos por el Arte. Representing a metamorphosis from lone artist into collective creative force and guided by the mantra "go fast, go alone; go far, go together," BlackBrain Group transforms solitary endeavors into dynamic collaborations grounded in a shared passion for storytelling through art. SCRD GRDN is an immersive painting installation about the resolute human spirit and its existential journey through oppression, justice, prosperity, and divine understanding. Fusing artistic styles and techniques, the series meditates on the interplay and influence between the inner self and the external forces that shape our existence. Each work includes symbolic, complex images floating within black voids, suggesting fertile seeds of existence that hold and balance tensions such as joy and melancholy, control and chaos, movement and stillness. Drawing inspiration from the awe and grandeur of Renaissance frescoes and monumental stained glass windows, the installation seeks to embody and express sacred meaning today. Comprehensively, SCRD GRDN creates a visual sanctuary where the diverse voices and experiences of the artists–and also, importantly, audience members–converge, intermingle, and resonate. As the artists’ encourage, “Join us on this visual odyssey—a journey that surpasses the conventional, ushering in a new era of shared experiences and inner growth.” SCRD GRDN is a project of moCa’s institutional and early career artist residency with the Julia De Burgos Cultural Arts Center (JDBCAC) from January 2023-May 2024. Situated within the heart of Cleveland’s Brooklyn Centre neighborhood, JDBCAC is an organization committed to the transformational power of preserving, educating, and promoting Latino heritage through history, culture, and the arts. JDBCAC occupies and engages spaces on moCa’s first and third floors in relation to its mission and work, and co-designs programming with moCa aimed at nurturing the next generation of artistic voices, providing a platform for Cuyahoga County-based residency artists to present their creations in a group exhibition at moCa Cleveland last season. advance the work of Latino/a/x artists and artists of color and provide new professional development opportunities. In 2023, BlackBrain artist Ariel Vergez took on the role of mentor artist to a new generation of artist voices involved in the moCa/JDBCAC early career artist residency, providing a platform for Cuyahoga County-based residency artists to present their creations in the group exhibition ¡Juntos! last year. Vergez, with his experience and innovative spirit, guided these emerging artists, illustrating the reciprocal relationship between mentor and mentee. Generous support provided by Margaret Cohen & Kevin Rahilly, The Cleveland Foundation, and the Callahan Foundation Installation Images BlackBrain, SCRD GRDN. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2024. Photos: Jacob Koestler About the Artist BlackBrain Ariel Vergez, aka BlackBrain, is a seasoned artist with a rich heritage and a passion for storytelling through art. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Florida, BlackBrain is the child of two immigrants who came to the United States in search of opportunity and met each other while working in the service industry. Growing up in a household where art was a daily presence, BlackBrain pursued his passion for art at the collegiate level, studying Industrial Design at the Cleveland Institute of Art. With a background in product and graphic design, BlackBrain has worked with world-class brands and has a keen understanding of the importance of storytelling in design. He has fused that experience towards his first love art. This experience is evident in BlackBrain’s art series, which feature unique narratives, a cross-wiring of pop culture icons, and a vuja dé feeling of nostalgia. BlackBrain layers allegory, pop culture, and history to create new and at times, bizarre stories that inflect on the ‘remembered.’ Over the past decade, BlackBrain has been featured in a plethora of shows and has created a range of concentration of subject matter. He has completed a slew of murals worldwide, many of them focused in Los Angeles and Miami, his previous homes. BlackBrain is particularly known for his ability to tell stories through his art, which is a reflection of his pursuit to expound parody and symbolism as key tools to his method of creating rich visual stories. With a portfolio that spans across different mediums and styles, BlackBrain continues to push the boundaries of what art can be and challenge our perceptions of the world around us. His art is a dissection of ancient and pop cultural story telling. It work has a diversity that makes his art so unique and relate-able while maintaing mystery and depth.

Jan 31, 2020-Jan 2, 2021 Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom Leanne Betasamosake Simpson with Cara Mumford and Amanda Strong, Vaimoana Niumeitolu and Kyle Goen, John Edmonds, and Tricia Hersey Jan 31, 2020-Jan 2, 2021 Installation view: Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom . moCa Cleveland, 2020. Photo: Field Studio. “Historically Indigenous and Black artists have been visionaries in our struggles and movements. They have also affirmed our presence—created temporary spaces of joy and freedom, and enabled me to go on. In the academy I think about things, and lecture about things, but in performance I can set up space together with an audience to share something different. I really liked creating these islands of freedom, little glimpses of freedom where we stand together and we get to feel, just for a second maybe, what freedom might be like, and to get that feeling into our bones. These spaces open up different possibilities. These spaces are not just spaces of refusal, they are also generative. They are also spaces of joy and possibility.”—Leanne Betasamosake Simpson The group exhibition Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom honors the discussion that artist and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Canadian poet and scholar Dionne Brand forged in their 2018 article of the same title * reflecting on colonialism, anti-Blackness, Indigenous and Black liberation struggles, and the importance of ephemeral expressions and the arts in creating freedom. Featuring the work of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson with Cara Mumford and Amanda Strong, Vaimoana Niumeitolu and Kyle Goen, John Edmonds, and Tricia Hersey. Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom continues the article’s vision by spotlighting artists whose work and practices refuse dispossession and foster generative modes that center and nourish Indigenous and Black life. Working across performance, video, photography, and sculpture, these artists celebrate dynamic modes of connection and soulful regeneration. Organized by La Tanya S. Autry, moCa’s Gund Curatorial Fellow, Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom is the prologue of a longer conversation at moCa that explores how artists create liberatory futures. The next chapter Imagine Otherwise will unfold February 19–June 27, 2021. *Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Dionne Brand, “Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom,” Literary Review of Canada , 26, (5), June 2018. Generous support for the exhibition provided by the Anselm Talalay Photography Endowment.

Jan 27-Jun 11, 2023 Amber N. Ford Someone, Somewhere, Something Jan 27-Jun 11, 2023 Amber N. Ford, Balloon Release for Bogard , 2021, digital photograph. Courtesy the artist Best known for photography, artist Amber N. Ford delves into the medium of sound as a tool to share intimate stories of grief. During her Winter/Spring 2022 residency at moCa, Ford used moCa’s space as a site to collect responses from audiences about their experiences of loss and trauma. Someone, Somewhere, Something applies this content in a new audio work presented in various unconventional sites throughout the museum to create poignant sound collages that make space for mourning while also supporting catharsis and healing. Lead support for Amber N. Ford: Someone, Somewhere, Something is provided by Margaret Cohen & Kevin Rahilly. Additional support provided by The Callahan Foundation. About the Artist Amber N. Ford Amber N. Ford Amber N. Ford (b. 1994, Cleveland, OH) is an artist based in Cleveland, OH. She received her BFA in Photography from the Cleveland Institute of Art (2016). Interested in race, and identity, she is best known for her work in portraiture, which she considers a “collaborative engagement between photographer and sitter.” She has been featured in exhibitions at Kent State University, Transformer Station, SPACES Gallery, The Morgan Conservatory, The Cleveland Print Room, Zygote Press, and Waterloo Arts, as well as in outdoor public spaces on the Capitol Theatre Building located at the corner of Detroit and West 65th. In 2021, her work was on view at ThirdSpace Action Lab as a part of Imagine Otherwise . Recent awards include Gordon Square Arts District Artist-In-Residence (2019) and the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award (2017).

Jan 28-Jun 5, 2022 Jerome AB At Once Terrifying and Equally Freeing Jan 28-Jun 5, 2022 Jerome AB, At Once Terrifying and Equally Freeing , 2021 (still). HD Video, Color, Sound, 9 min. Courtesy the artist Jerome AB’s At Once Terrifying and Equally Freeing (2021) is a mixed-media installation, movement video, and soundscape. A case study in surrender, the work consists of an artifact, once buried beneath compounded terrain, now displayed within the museum walls. Its provenance unaccounted for, the 12’ high metal structure operates like a time capsule, nestled in excavated ground. Inside the enclosure is a three-dimensional video file, attempting to relay a psychological unraveling captured in real time. Past glitches of lapsed memories, the video’s subject comes to a road diverged. In one instance, we can choose to find comfort in the cards we have been dealt, to live life on life’s terms. In another, our circumstances can feel like they are closing in on us, with the only option left to fight. What starts as one figure, splits, and fragments into a multiplicity of being. At Once Terrifying and Equally Freeing explores the existence of two seemingly opposing truths that can co-exist as one reality. Set to a deteriorating meditative score, a self-help spiral featuring multi-instrumentalists Eartheater and Jasminfire, AB’s At Once Terrifying and Equally Freeing explores what it means to relinquish control and to find courage in faith. Jerome AB’s At Once Terrifying and Equally Freeing is organized by Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo) as part of Toby’s Prize, a biennial award made possible by Toby Devan Lewis. About the Artist Jerome AB Jerome AB (b. 1991, Nairobi, Kenya) is a multidisciplinary artist and creative director based in Los Angeles, CA. Trained as an architect actualized through dance, his work is a translation of movement architecture and spatial choreography. AB’s performance pieces, films, installations, and sonic sculptures are all rooted in creating worlds that represent physical manifestations of psychological landscapes. Reoccurring motifs of exploration include queer futures, ancestral connection, healthy masculinity, and the occasional internet purge. AB has created work for and alongside artists such as Blood Orange, Bobbi Salvor Menuez, Kanye West, Caroline Polachek, Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo), poet Precious Okoyomon, photographers Paul Sepuya and Michael Bailey-Gates, filmmaker Alima Lee, and Brooklyn-based dance duo FlucT. His work has been featured at institutions such as MoMA PS1, LACMA, National Sawdust, Knockdown Center, Navel, and Lever House as commissioned by Performa.

Feb 2-May 26, 2024 Andrea Bowers Exist, Flourish, Evolve Feb 2-May 26, 2024 Andrea Bowers, Rights of Nature I, 2022, neon. Photo: Glen Cheriton, Impart Photography LA-based artist Andrea Bowers bears witness in her work, drawing attention to and inspiring movement around the most urgent issues of our time. Her drawings, sculptures, installations, and films chronicle and preserve history as it occurs, documenting collective action and amplifying the labor and lived experiences of activists dedicated to socio-political change. Developed through an ongoing partnership with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and activist Tish O’Dell, Exist, Flourish, Evolve is a new, multi-site, multimedia campaign that builds awareness and action around the dangers facing Lake Erie and all of the Great Lakes ecosystems. It features a monumental neon sculpture installed on a waterfront balcony of the Great Lakes Science Center; a documentary investigating the impact of factory farming on Lake Erie’s ecosystem; and a presentation in moCa’s Lewis Gallery that includes a newly-created drawing of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, first-of-its-kind legislation protecting an entire US ecosystem that is part of the global Rights of Nature Movement. Bowers was raised in the small town of Huron, Ohio and spent her childhood on the shores of Lake Erie, connecting to the lake itself like a member of her family to be cared for, cherished, and protected. Yet, Lake Erie and its watershed are abused and endangered by corporate practices such as contaminant dumping, toxic runoff from industrial farming, and the introduction of non-native invasive species. Exist, Flourish, Evolve demands justice for the Great Lakes, urging us to prioritize the preservation of our natural ecology over industrialization and capitalism. Within moCa’s gallery, a timeline connects Bowers’s new and recent artworks with historical facts and archival materials using two catastrophic climate events as bookends to Bowers’s life thus far: the 1969 fire on the Lake Erie-connected Cuyahoga River (a result of oil slicks covering the water) and the massive 2014 algae bloom that blanketed Lake Erie and invaded Toledo’s water systems, preventing residents from using tap water. From the Maumee to the Cuyahoga, the works in Exist, Flourish, Evolve come together to share the histories of our water, demonstrate the interconnectedness of ourselves and our natural world, and remind us, as Dr. Vandana Shiva states, “nature is not out there; we are a part of it.” Commission sponsorship provided by Generous support from Chuck & Char Fowler, Joanne Cohen & Morris Wheeler, and Nicholas & Erin Reif Community Partners: Installation Images Andrea Bowers, Exist, Flourish, Evolve. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2024, and Great Lakes Science Center exterior, 2024. Photos: Jacob Koestler About the Artist Andrea Bowers. Courtesy Fondazione Furla Andrea Bowers (b. 1964, Ohio) is a Los Angeles-based artist who has been recording and amplifying the work of activists present and past for more than two decades. Her multi-media practice includes drawing, video, sculpture, and installation work that foregrounds the experience of the people who dedicate their time and energy to the struggle for gender, racial, environmental, labor, and immigration justice and those who are directly affected by systemic inequality. Over time, her different bodies of work have become a document of the changing language, prerogatives, and dynamics of social justice movements. In 2021 a major mid-career survey of Bowers’s work curated by Michael Darling and Connie Butler opened at the MCA Chicago and traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2022. Other recent solo exhibitions include Grief and Hope , Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany and Light and Gravity , Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, Germany. In September 2022, Bowers opened a solo exhibition including both new and existing work at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano as part of an exhibition program organized by the Fondazione Furla. Bowers is represented by Vielmetter Los Angeles, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Kaufmann Repetto, and Jessica Silverman Gallery.

Jun 28-Dec 29, 2024 A PLACE meant Co-organized with Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry Jun 28-Dec 29, 2024 How can Cleveland use emerging design solutions to address displacement and affordable housing challenges in our city? A PLACE meant explores innovations in affordable housing at the nexus of environmental responsibility, energy efficiency, and contemporary design. Co-organized with Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry (LMM) and Humanitarian & Founding Principal Sai Sinbondit of I_You Design Lab, the exhibition presents material and image-based examples of accessible housing approaches taking shape across the globe. From modular housing that can be constructed with limited tools to container homes made from existing vessels to 3D printed homes that can be erected in a few days, the exhibition reflects on the city's housing history while encouraging shifts that could make Cleveland a center of design innovation in the future. The exhibition, located throughout moCa’s ground floor from July-December 2024, will be accompanied by a series of free public events and intergenerational education programs to teach about and inspire a commitment to creative affordable housing in our community.How can Cleveland use emerging design solutions to address displacement and affordable housing challenges in our city? This project ties LMM's 55th anniversary and its ever-expanding focus on housing and shelter solutions through pioneering initiatives like Breaking New Ground and the Solar Homes of SC that underscore the importance of collaboration, innovation, and community engagement to address systemic issues. As Cleveland grapples with the challenges of affordable housing and displacement, moCa, LMM, and Sindondit take a proactive design approach to offer dynamic solutions to help create a more inclusive and sustainable future. Installation Images Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, A PLACE Meant. Installation views at moCa Cleveland, 2024. Photos: Jacob Koestler About Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry Founded in 1969, the mission of Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry (LMM) is to promote shalom (peace, well-being) and justice (right relationship) through a Christian ministry of service and advocacy with those who are oppressed, forgotten and hurting. LMM’s founding began as an ecumenical response, started by the Lutheran Church, to the urban uprising that took place on the East Side of Cleveland in the mid-1960s. Over the last five decades, LMM has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to addressing chronic needs, enabling people in our community facing adversity to become self-sufficient, and advocating for systems change. Our programming focuses on innovative and effective services in the areas of Guardianship, Housing & Shelter, Workforce Development, and Youth Resiliency. About i_you design lab I_You Design Lab is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit collective made up of artists, makers, and designers dedicated to the betterment of people and environmental through leveraging research and design as tools to address fundamental needs, dignity, local community’s health, and environmental stewardship. We partner with individuals, communities, and other nonprofits through projects that fundamentally elevate the quality of lives of those who are displaced and under-served. I_You Design Lab is governed by a board of directors who advise on the organization’s strategy, operations, and paths to meet to the organization’s mission.

Jan 27-Jun 11, 2023 Sam Falls We Are Dust and Shadow Jan 27-Jun 11, 2023 Sam Falls, Untitled (San Bernardino National Forest, CA.) , 2017-2019. Pigment on canvas, 128 x 272 in. (325.1 x 690.9 cm). Courtesy Sam Falls and 303 Gallery, New York Sam Falls’s show at moCa, the artist’s first major solo museum exhibition, offers expansive insight into his unique practice of collaborating with nature to create monumental paintings and sculptures. Falls’s poetic, ghostly works examine the sublimity and inherent melancholy of nature’s cycles and finite life. Interested in photographic exposure and representation, Falls experiments with the effects of sunlight, rain, and temperature, harnessing weather patterns and environmental conditions to create paintings, sculptures, and photographs in and with nature. In addition to new sculptures and paintings made by Falls in various national parks across the country, moCa has partnered with the Cleveland Botanical Garden & Holden Arboretum to support Falls’s creation of a new ceramic work, using materials from Northeast Ohio. Lead support for Sam Falls: We Are Dust and Shadow is provided by Dealer Tire. Generous support provided by 303 Gallery and Galerie Eva Presenhuber. Additional support provided by the Anselm Talalay Photography Fund. About the Artist Sam Falls. Photo: Erin Falls Sam Falls Sam Falls (b. 1984, San Diego, CA) works intimately with the core precepts of photography–namely time, representation, and exposure–to create works that both bridge the gap between various artistic mediums and the divide between the artist, object, and viewer. Working symbiotically with nature and the elements, Falls’s artworks are engrained with a sense of place indexical to the unique environment of their creation while imbued with a universal sense of mortality. With a reverence toward art history, Falls empathetically blurs the lines between artistic genres and practices, from modern dance and minimalist painting to conceptual photography and land art, boiling it down to the fundamentals of nature and the transience of life that art best addresses. Falls is represented by 303 Gallery (New York), Galerie Eva Presenhuber (Zurich and Vienna), Jessica Silverman Gallery (San Francisco), and Galleria Franco Noero (Turin).

News + Read more at Art News Friday, October 11, 2024 By Alex Greenberger One’s eye typically skates right over the list of materials on the caption for an artwork, since the verbiage used—“oil on canvas,” “ink on paper,” and the like—tends to be more perfunctory than it is engaging. But in the case of Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya ’s sculptures of creatures in transformation, the words used to describe his many materials cannot be ignored because they are so stylized and so bizarre. Take the case of The Lil Rat That Made It on Board the Ship (2021), a sculpture that appeared at Artists Space in New York this past summer. It’s an all-black assemblage that has a long, gnarled tail extending from its body and a pointy claw affixed to its head; it would not be out of place in the Alien universe. Its materials, as described by Montoya, are worth quoting at length: “My very very large black t-shirt that I smeared with pigmented dragon skin silicone. Welding wire, black zip ties, black and green sewing string, rabbit pelt, horn tips, half a horn, nail polish, dirty socks because Timoh was washing his calzones and I couldn’t wait, emerald powdered pigment, car fender, black car part, possed bouncing ball.” Previous Next

Jun 27, 2025-Jan 4, 2026 Beverly Semmes The Dresses Jun 27, 2025-Jan 4, 2026 Beverly Semmes, Rhonda Lavonda Yolanda Chiffonda , 1995. Organza and crushed velvet, 32 feet long (each). This installation by Beverly Semmes features four monumental dresses crafted from velvet and organza. Suspended on a white wall with a pronounced architectural scale, the sensuous, floating forms evoke both intimacy and grandeur. A formal exploration of pattern, texture, and color, the exaggerated proportions—what Semmes describes as a “perfect size 6,000”—disrupt conventional scales, connecting the viewer's body with the surrounding architecture. At once whimsical and unsettling, the dresses stand in for absent bodies, inviting reflection on the people who might inhabit them and traditional ideals of femininity, identity, and beauty. Since the late 1980s, Beverly Semmes has created work that centers on the tactile and transformative power of materials. While she often works with fabric and clay, her art also includes glass, video, painting, and performance. Semmes combines references to craft, domestic life, and fine art to build a visual language that is both alluring and sharply critical. Her sculptures and installations explore ideas about gender, power, and how women are seen and represented. By playing with scale, texture, and form, she challenges traditional expectations of women’s bodies. Influenced by expressionism, minimalism, and feminist thought, Semmes creates work that is at once abstract and physical, playful and provocative. This installation was originally commissioned by The Progressive Corporation, the Mayfield Village-based corporation. Co-presented with The Progressive Corporation About the Artist Beverly Semmes. Photo: Ross Collab. Courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC. Beverly Semmes Beverly Semmes (b. 1958) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work incorporates sculpture, painting, drawing, film, photography, and performance. These complementary elements adhere in surprising ways, probing the paradoxes and complexities of the female body and its representation. Based in New York, Semmes has been honored with many solo museum exhibitions, including presentations at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the ICA Philadelphia; the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; The Ginza Art Space, Tokyo; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In fall 2025, her alma mater, Tufts University, will present a major solo exhibition at the University Gallery. Recent group exhibitions include Always In Relation: 50 Years of the Gallery at Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown; The New Village: Ten Years of New York Fashion at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, NYC as well as Witch Hunt at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the 57th Carnegie International, at the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh. Semmes’ work can be found in the permanent collections of the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, the Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, The Netherlands, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, among others. The artist is represented by Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC.

Jan 28-Jun 5, 2022 Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo) Jan 28-Jun 5, 2022 Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo), One year performing outside (Stonewall)(protests) 2020-2021. Courtesy the artist Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo) is the second recipient of moCa’s biannual Toby’s Prize. Named after philanthropist Toby Devan Lewis—one of moCa’s long-standing Board members—the prize supports the artistic practices of five artists over a 10-year period. Puppies Puppies’s early conceptual works were created under a pseudonym that avoided specificity of gender, origin, and individualism. Beginning in 2018, the artist embarked on a new series of work that coincided with the beginning of her transition to Jade Kuriki Olivo. Throughout her multilayered practice is a commitment to the rights of Black, Indigenous, People of Color, transgender, gender non-conforming, two-spirit+ communities. The artist is the first to share the Toby’s Prize experience, inviting artists Jerome AB and J.J. Adams to create new works for two simultaneous solo exhibitions opening in January 2022. Her project at moCa also includes the development of a new film and the creation of her first publication, published in collaboration with Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Canada, and Kunsthaus Glarus in Switzerland. Toby's Prize is generously supported by Toby Devan Lewis.

Jul 16-Aug 15, 2021 Aawful Aaron by Aaron D. Williams Jul 16-Aug 15, 2021 Aaron D. Williams, A Reinvented Self I , 2021, Alcohol marker and colored pencil on Bristol paper, 17” X 14” Presented in partnership w/ Museum of Creative Human Art and moCa Cleveland Aawful Aaron uses sports as an entry point to assist audiences in more deeply understanding anxiety and mental health struggles. This exhibition destigmatized open conversations about mental health, especially as they relate to black males. Using mainstream sports including basketball and football, and those often overlooked like chess and sword fencing, Aawful Aaron conveys a “game against anxiety” through different lenses with the intention of bringing together a multiplicity of sports fans to appreciate the nuanced ways in which we experience mental health. Presented in partnership w/ About the Artist Aaron D. Williams Aaron D. Williams More about Aaron D. Williams at instagram.com/aawfulaaron .