My Kingdom for a Title was the first exhibition to be organized at the Neubauer Collegium since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global health emergency unavoidably cast a shadow over the project, which contained allusions to the crisis with a degree of directness that is unusual in Pope.L’s work. Visitors entered an immersive installation under a cloud of objects that have come to symbolize the socio-medical predicament. The centerpiece was a selection of works chosen from Pope.L’s Skin Set Project, an ongoing series of text-based drawings and paintings featuring elliptical aphorisms that call attention to the way color is deployed to categorize people. An arrangement of medicine cabinets with mirrored doors left ajar were lit from the inside, inviting visitors to get a better look at the works contained within. The subtle play of prompts and references animated the gallery as a space where notions of access — to art, to meaning, to health care — were entangled with those of color as conventional markers of identity.
Curated by Dieter Roelstraete
Installation photography and video by Robert Heishman. All rights reserved.
Gallery
Pope.L: My Kingdom for a Title Gallery
Exhibition Narrative
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Hospital Art, Or: Why You Should Probably Study Illness Before You Visit Pope.L’s Art Exhibition at the Neubauer Collegium
Hospital Art, Or: Why You Should Probably Study Illness Before You Visit Pope.L’s Art Exhibition at the Neubauer Collegium
Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Zachary Cahill reflects about illness, hospital art, and exhibition titles in this experimental review of Pope.L's My Kingdom for a Title.
One week after My Kingdom for a Title “opened,” while the gallery was still closed to the public, Pope.L returned to stage an intervention. In the video he produced with Robert Heishman, shown...
As an exhibition that opened without a public reception in the midst of a pandemic, My Kingdom for a Title makes a provocative case for the presentation of art as a form of essential labor. Pope.L...
Hospital Art, Or: Why You Should Probably Study Illness Before You Visit Pope.L’s Art Exhibition at the Neubauer Collegium
Hospital Art, Or: Why You Should Probably Study Illness Before You Visit Pope.L’s Art Exhibition at the Neubauer Collegium
Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Zachary Cahill reflects about illness, hospital art, and exhibition titles in this experimental review of Pope.L's My Kingdom for a Title.
One week after My Kingdom for a Title “opened,” while the gallery was still closed to the public, Pope.L returned to stage an intervention. In the video he produced with Robert Heishman, shown...
As an exhibition that opened without a public reception in the midst of a pandemic, My Kingdom for a Title makes a provocative case for the presentation of art as a form of essential labor. Pope.L...