Tiona Nekkia McClodden: Mask / Conceal / Carry - (Clarion) by Tiona Nekkia McClodden & Simone White & Rhea Dillon (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Tiona Nekkia McClodden considers the presence and absence of the Black figure and aesthetic tropes of representation through work traversing film, installation, sculpture, painting, and writing.

"An artist who may be America's most essential today." --Siddhartha Mitter, The New York Times

Known for her sharp examinations of biomythography and intersubjectivity, McClodden uses a research-based approach in her practice as an artist and self-described "historian and cultural custodian." MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY dissects the many meanings of these three words. McClodden creates films, paintings, and sculptures from her own firearms and calibers, and referencing cultural and historical objects including Benin Bronzes and BDSM gimp masks. This exhibition pivots around the concept of "training to failure." It holds that, in order to make progress, you need to carry more weight than you can handle; to achieve gains or to succeed--a success measured by and set in accordance with someone else's standard--you must strenuously lift something that is inherently too great a load to bear. McClodden communicates a core awareness of the body as it corresponds to the fragile boundaries of the psyche. Through custom lighting, the artist carefully choreographs a performance between the work, the gallery space, and the viewer.

Adding to McClodden's narrative and psychological concepts, this publication includes a curator's note from Ebony L. Haynes, a poem by the acclaimed writer and artist Rhea Dillon, and a conversation between the poet Simone White and the artist, as well as a statement penned by McClodden herself.

Review Quotes

"...her ability to complicate and innovate, both formally and conceptually, while honoring origins, means McClodden continues to expand her role in the art world, from an influential artist to that of historian and cultural custodian"-- "Artnet News"

"one of the most singular artists of our aesthetically rich, free-range time"-- "The New York Times"

"the multidisciplinary artist has established herself as a leading voice in contemporary Black culture"-- "Cultured Magazine"

"An artist who may be America's most essential today."-- "The New York Times"

"Best Art of 2022"

--Roberta Smith "The New York Times"

"The Best New York Art Shows of 2022"

--Jerry Saltz "Vulture, New York Magazine"

"The 22 Best Art Shows of 2022"

-- "Cultured"

About the Author

Born in 1981 in Blytheville, Arkansas, Tiona Nekkia McClodden was a resident of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine, in 2018. McClodden's multidisciplinary solo exhibition The Trace of an Implied Presence, which is coproduced in partnership with Nike, opened at The Shed, New York, in August 2022. Solo exhibitions by the artist have been presented at Company Gallery, New York (2019); Performance Space, New York (2018); and Recess, New York (2018), among other arts spaces. The artist was selected to participate in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and among the seventy-five artists exhibited she was the recipient of the Bucksbaum Award. She is the founder and director of the exhibition space and library Conceptual Fade, in Philadelphia. The artist is represented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Work by McClodden is held in public collections such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Rennie Museum, Vancouver. The artist lives and works in Philadelphia.

Simone White is a poet and critic. She is the author of or, on being the other woman (2022), Dear Angel of Death (2018), Of Being Dispersed (2016), and House Envy of All the World (2010). She teaches in the English department at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Brooklyn.

Rhea Dillon is an artist, writer, and poet based in London. Examining and abstracting her intrigue of the "rules of representation" as a device to undermine contemporary Western culture, Dillon questions what constitutes the ontology of Blackness versus the ontic. The artist's first institutional solo exhibition opens at Tate Britain Art Now in 2023.