Dawn DeDeaux and Lonnie Holley: Thumbs up for the Mothership at MASS MoCA – Opening May 28, 2017

Exhibition Dates: May 28, 2017–June 2018
Opening: Sunday May 28 at noon, in conjunction with the Building 6 ribbon cutting ceremony
Exhibition Walk-through: Sunday May 28 at 1pm, Dawn DeDeaux and Lonnie Holley
Location: Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), 1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247
Hours: Wednesday–Monday, 11 am–5 pm
Museum Contact Info: 413.662.2111, info@massmoca.org
More information: Exhibition information, Building 6 information

Dawn DeDeaux

Parlor Games V (detail)

New Orleans native Dawn DeDeaux opens a new exhibition next week as part of the grand opening of Building 6 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). DeDeaux shows together with Lonnie Holley and other Building 6 artists including Laurie Anderson, Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer and James Turrell. The new MASSMoCA Building 6 makes the museum one of the largest venues for contemporary art in the world.

Thumbs up for the Mothership features works by DeDeaux and Alabamian self-taught sculptor and musician Lonnie Holley. Influenced by their southern roots, both artists mine the landscapes around them for found objects and engage in dialogues around issues of ecology and social justice.

Both DeDeaux and Holley frequently experiment with mixed media and incorporate performance into their practice — ranging from totemic found objects and photography to experimental blues music and Afro-futurist philosophies.

Among the works in the exhibition is DeDeaux’s assemblage titled Parlor Games: From Palmyra to Aleppo to New Orleans featuring falling antique Corinthian columns and a wrecking ball suspended within a plaster medallion created in collaboration with New Orleans fifth generation Plasterer Jeff Poree.

The exhibition opens to the public on May 28, 2017 and will remain on view until July 2018. DeDeaux’s work will then return to New Orleans for an upcoming comprehensive retrospective at New Orleans Museum of Art in 2019.

Further Reading
Dawn DeDeaux: Between Apocalypses, The New York Times, October 2014
Lonnie Holley, The Insider’s Outsider, The New York Times, January 2015

Support
Major exhibition support is provided by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Barr Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.