‘FESTIVAL’ by Josiah Golson at the Carlos Gallery
The Carlos Gallery in the Visual Art Building at the University of the South is pleased to present “FESTIVAL,” an installation by artist Josiah Golson. The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 13. An artist talk and reception will be at 5 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 13.
Josiah Golson explores personal and collective narratives of identity and advocacy through drawing, painting, poetry, performance, and video. He is the creator of 800 Collective, an organization that creatively inspires and organizes civic discourse and engagement.
“FESTIVAL” is a work of poetry, installation, and performance through which Golson explores identity and belonging in his relationship with popular music and its imagery. Through visual and textual narrative contextualized in the space of a teenage music lover’s bedroom, Golson shares his experience of negotiating the complexity of influence and seeking authenticity amid the power structures of popular culture.
In “FESTIVAL,” Golson reimagines his teenage bedroom as a space of world-building with the iconography of popular music. Through the assemblage and collage of photos sourced from magazines, posters, and pop music media, he designs “stages” or scenes inspired by the “genre” or styles of music associated with the subjects. Over time, Golson revisits, reconstructs, and removes images to transform the layered and evolving scene, as the bedroom endures as a space for conjuring and constructing identity and community. As he releases the mass-produced images of his “heroes,” these icons populate the floor and are replaced with photos, markings, and materials that reflect his authentic experiences and world, the music no less present.
The installation is documented in an Artist’s Book that contains poems for each of the 12 “stages” of the bedroom.
Josiah Golson is the founder of 800 Collective, and the Programs Director at Stove Works in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Golson received his B.A. in Communication from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin. Developing his artistic practice while studying law, Golson expanded his projects from individual works to collaborative workshops and projects inspired by civic themes. Golson has taught and facilitated workshops at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, and Project Row Houses in the Third Ward of Houston, Texas.
Carlos Gallery in the Visual Art Building is located at 105 Kennerly Rd. Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday–Friday, and 1–5 p.m., Saturday.