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POPE.L Green People Are The Reflection Which Is Form

POPE.L
Green People Are The Reflection Which Is Form
2012
Mixed media on paper
12 by 9 in.  30.5 by 22.9 cm.

POPE.L Orange People Are The Grid On The Ceiling

POPE.L
Orange People Are The Grid On The Ceiling
2012
Mixed media on paper
12 by 9 in.  30.5 by 22.9 cm

POPE.L Untitled (Green People Are The Soft Palate)

POPE.L
Untitled (Green People Are The Soft Palate)
2011
Mixed media on paper
11 1/2 by 9 in.  29.2 by 22.9 cm.

POPE.L Blue People Are That Heaven In That Movie

POPE.L
Blue People Are That Heaven In That Movie
2010
Mixed media on paper
12 by 8 7/8 in.  30.5 by 22.5 cm.

POPE.L 087, 37-38, e, o/as

POPE.L
087, 37-38, e, o/as
2013
Mixed media on paper
12 by 9 in.  30.5 by 22.9 cm.

POPE.L XXXXXX XXX OXXV HOV XXXOO XXX

POPE.L
XXXXXX XXX OXXV HOV XXXOO XXX
2012
Mixed media on paper
12 by 8 7/8 in.  30.5 by 22.5 cm.

POPE.L Skin Set Painting: Brown People Are A Theory About Green People

POPE.L
Skin Set Painting: Brown People Are A Theory About Green People
2011
Mixed media on vellum
36 by 23 3/4 in.  91.4 by 60.3 cm.

POPE.L Skin Set Painting: Pink People Eat Cotton Candy That Cotton

POPE.L
Skin Set Painting: Pink People Eat Cotton Candy That Cotton
2012
Mixed media on vellum
36 by 23 3/4 in.  91.4 by 60.3 cm.

 

POPE.L Negro Idea #414

POPE.L
Negro Idea #414
2003
Vinyl on colored pvc
12 by 11 in.  30.5 by 27.9 cm.
 

POPE.L Conceptacle (white)

POPE.L
Conceptacle (white)
2013
Painted vinyl mask
12 by 8 1/2 by 10 1/2 in.  30.5 by 21.6 by 26.7 cm.

POPE.L After (green)

POPE.L
After (green)
2013
Painted vinyl mask
12 by 8 1/2 by 10 1/2 in.  30.5 by 21.6 by 26.7 cm.

POPE.L Set Skin Painting: The Winter of Black People

POPE.L
Set Skin Painting: The Winter of Black People
2011- 2013
Water-based oil, acrylic
Diptych, overall: 61 by 120 in.  154.9 by 304.8 cm.

POPE.L Skin Set Painting: The Commons Divides Moses and Moses Divides S…

POPE.L
Skin Set Painting: The Commons Divides Moses and Moses Divides S…
2011-2013
Water-based oil, acrylic on paper
Diptych, overall: 60 3/4 by 117 1/2 in.  154.3 by 298.5 cm.

POPE.L Skin Set Painting: Blue People Are My New God Replacing Chartreuse People My Old God

POPE.L
Skin Set Painting: Blue People Are My New God Replacing Chartreuse People My Old God
2012-2013
Water-based oil, acrylic, metal clips on paper
84 by 60 in.  213.4 by 152.4 cm.

Press Release

Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to present Colored Waiting Room, the third solo exhibition of Pope.L at the gallery and his second in the Chelsea space.  This show’s incorporation of drawing, painting, sculpture, and projections display the artist’s versatility and use of various media in his practice. 

The show’s title, Colored Waiting Room, interpolates an excess, an aberration of intentional language which seeks to qualify division by defining identity.  The show’s title evokes a very particular historical moment, specifically American racial segregation against blacks in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries.  However, a literal examination of the phrase opens the space to ‘nosier’, more flexible readings of color, words and proximity in the context of art, science and culture.

In this exhibition, Pope.L addresses a lack within language with a playfulness which is both enigmatic and astute.  As evident in his Skin Set drawings, Pope.L collaborates with society’s use of color terminology to characterize notions such as ontology, gender, race and social value.  The current exhibition includes a large group of Skin Set works as well as two new, large-scale diptychs with a ‘cousin’ focus. In addition, through sound and olfactory pieces, the viewer is invited to contemplate the exhibition through an almost synesthetic dialogue with color. 

By creating an exhibition space that is both structurally and ideologically a puzzle, Pope.L seeks to reconstruct the viewer via his or her own boundaries. 

Pope.L was born in 1955 in New Jersey.  He currently lives and works in Chicago, IL, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.  He has had solo exhibitions at institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the Kunsthalle Wien.  The MIT Press published a monograph to accompany The Friendliest Black Artist in America, his 2002-2004 traveling survey exhibition.  His work has been exhibited and performed at Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Whitney Museum in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, The New Museum in New York and the Renaissance Society in Chicago.  Recent exhibitions and performances include Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas; Flux This! With Pope.L and Special Guests at Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY; and The Long White Cloud, Te Tuhi Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand.