Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It
Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It
Cauleen Smith is a Los Angeles–based interdisciplinary artist whose work reflects upon the everyday possibilities of the imagination. A traveling solo exhibition of film, video, and installations, Give It or Leave It features a series of experimental portraits of different sites related to spirituality, creativity, and utopianism. Much of the research conducted for Smith’s film projects has taken place in California, on location at Alice Coltrane’s ashram, The Vedantic Center, and in history through a restaging of a photograph of nine dapper black men taken in 1966 at the Watts Towers by Bill Ray. Additional archival research delves into the 19th-century Black spiritualist Rebecca Cox Jackson, who was the Eldress of the first Black Shaker community in Philadelphia. These separate and unrelated universes coalesce into an emotional cosmos in Give It or Leave It.
This exhibition is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania.
Support is provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
All exhibitions at LACMA are underwritten by the LACMA Exhibition Fund. Major annual support is provided by Meredith and David Kaplan, with generous annual funding from Terry and Lionel Bell, Kevin J. Chen, Louise and Brad Edgerton, Edgerton Foundation, Emily and Teddy Greenspan, Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross, Mary and Daniel James, David Lloyd and Kimberly Steward, Kelsey Lee Offield, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony and Lee Shaw, Lenore and Richard Wayne, Marietta Wu and Thomas Yamamoto, and The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation.
Image: Installation photograph, Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It, September 14–December 23, 2018, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, © Cauleen Smith, photo: Constance Mensh for the Institute of Contemporary Art
- April 1, 2021 – October 31, 2021
- BCAM, Level 1
- Estimated visit time: 30 minutes
This exhibition is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania.
Support is provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
All exhibitions at LACMA are underwritten by the LACMA Exhibition Fund. Major annual support is provided by Meredith and David Kaplan, with generous annual funding from Terry and Lionel Bell, Kevin J. Chen, Louise and Brad Edgerton, Edgerton Foundation, Emily and Teddy Greenspan, Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross, Mary and Daniel James, David Lloyd and Kimberly Steward, Kelsey Lee Offield, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony and Lee Shaw, Lenore and Richard Wayne, Marietta Wu and Thomas Yamamoto, and The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation.
Image: Installation photograph, Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It, September 14–December 23, 2018, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, © Cauleen Smith, photo: Constance Mensh for the Institute of Contemporary Art
Installation Photography
