Carnegie Mellon University
August 12, 2021

Miller ICA Presents "Jacolby Satterwhite: Spirits Roaming on the Earth"

Margaret Cox
Pam Wigley
  • College of Fine Arts
  • 412-268-1047

Carnegie Mellon University's Miller Institute for Contemporary Art is pleased to present "Jacolby Satterwhite: Spirits Roaming on the Earth," the first major monographic survey of Satterwhite's wide-ranging practice. Curated by Elizabeth Chodos, director of the Miller ICA, "Spirits Roaming on the Earth" traces 10 years of Satterwhite's panoramic oeuvre. The exhibition will open Saturday, Aug. 14, and run through Sunday, Dec. 5, with a book launch and reception to be announced.

Satterwhite incorporates a broad set of real and fantastical references in his work — drawing from sources that include his home and family life, art history, mythology, video gaming, queer club scenes, and Black culture — that inform his 3D animated films, sculptures, electronic dance tracks and performances.

"His wide-ranging practice takes shape and evokes an essential moral lesson on the healing properties of human creativity transforming existential uncertainty into a generative engine of resilience, reinvention and celebration," Chodos said. "This quality is something he shares with his late mother and muse, Patricia Satterwhite, who leveraged her own irrepressible creative energy to transform hardship into new worlds of possibility."

A world-builder himself, Satterwhite has developed a multiform gestalt that can be fully appreciated for the first time in this exhibition and its companion monograph, "How lovely is me being as I am," also edited by Chodos along with Andrew Durbin with text by Sasha Bonét, essays by Malik Gaines, Jane Ursula Harris, Legacy Russell, an interview with Kimberly Drew, and book design by Sonia Yoon. Taken together, the book and exhibition present the artist's extraordinary creative trajectory, which cannot be fully understood only through its component parts. Mapping this holistic view of Satterwhite's singular ability to masterfully synthesize personal, theoretical and pop-cultural inputs across a wide range of materials and genres with unmatched skill and dexterity affirms his position as one of the preeminent makers and thinkers of our time.

This exhibition was made possible with support from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Frank Ratchye Studio for Creative Inquiry, the Center for the Arts in Society, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, and with major support from The Andy Warhol Foundation, the College of Fine Arts, Regina and Marlin Miller, and other individual donors.

This exhibition features contemporary art with adult content.