Exhibition Review: Keioui Keijuan Thomas “Hands Up, Ass Out”
In the Reflection of Ancient Tides, 2018 (still), in Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Hands Up, Ass Out, curated by Shehab Awad as Executive Care*, 2021 at Participant Inc, New York. Photography by Daniel Kukla.
Written by Jan Alex
In her first long-form solo exhibition, NYC-based multidisciplinary artist Keioui Keijaun Thomas brings a remarkable artistic chapter to an end and teases at what is to come. The exhibit, “Hands Up, Ass Out”, now on display at Participant Inc., is a captivating and evocative experience, one which captures an artistic perspective rooted in self-expression and an attention to every layer of the creative process. Through this engaging and provocative exhibit and its accompanying performances, Thomas offers a unique and immensely creative perspective on the experience of a young, black, LGBTQ+ person in a society still marred by tokenization and oppression.
Representing a culmination of her body of work from the last 6 years, the exhibit is the result of the longtime collaboration between Thomas and curator Shehab Awad. The body of work on display is intended to bring this chapter in Thomas’s artistic career to a close, while simultaneously hinting at what comes next. Composed of elements both new and old, the exhibit brings together fresh iterations of past performances, image-making, writings, and choreographies to provide a cohesive window into Thomas’s artistic journey.
Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Hands Up, Ass Out, curated by Shehab Awad as Executive Care*, 2021, installation view at Participant Inc, New York. Photography by Daniel Kukla.
The exhibit is both archival and performative, a collection of multidisciplinary fragments, which are overwhelming in their variety at first, but meld together into a narrative of affirmation and transcendence. Designed to be experienced chronologically, the exhibit begins with a three-channel silent video installation that reflects on performative works by the artist from 2014. Mounted on wooden pedestals, three old-fashioned Sony Trinitron monitors offer a window into the beginnings of this artistic chapter and into Thomas’s deeply personal brand of performance. The lack of audio/voice seems an intentional absence, as if to prime the audience for what is to come. The statue sitting amidst the monitors, identical to that being assembled onscreen, a physical reconnection between past and present.
Case 1: Prints, Ephemera, Documentation, 2021 (detail) in Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Hands Up, Ass Out, curated by Shehab Awad as Executive Care*, 2021 at Participant Inc, New York. Photography by Daniel Kukla.
Up next, collections of prints, ephemera, and assorted documentation of past performances and works offer clues to understanding. Alongside an opened copy of Bernard Koltes ``In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields”, a laminated infographic of a transatlantic slave ship reminds us of the oppression and intergenerational trauma inflicted on black bodies in our country. Next is the sheer panel showing the artist posed in performance, naked and with clothespins attached to her face, reminding you that it is all connected.
Continue, and you might hear a voice whispering and as you track it down find yourself under a parabolic speaker listening to High Yellow: She Hard, She Q (2016), a piece written and performed by the artist. This installation’s ability is drawing the audience in and forcing them to pay attention to the physical text engraved before them, printed in yellow ink on yellow paper, a literal and metaphorical SLOW sign in a complex and engrossing space.
BLACK BODIES, 2018 (still, detail), in Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Hands Up, Ass Out, curated by Shehab Awad as Executive Care*, 2021 at Participant Inc, New York. Photography by Daniel Kukla.
The interconnection, the subtle reminders of what was just seen, and her ability to plant her words and performances in the minds of the viewer. These are perhaps the most striking features of Thomas’s work. The trail of ephemera, photos, performance, writings, and sound that runs through the exhibit is both subtle and unavoidable, it captures and informs the mind and propels you along as you make baby steps towards understanding the remarkable vision of an artist who seems to have surpassed affirmation and transcended a need to be understood.
“Hands Up, Ass Out”, is on display at Participant Inc. until July 18th, and will culminate with a 24 hour live stream of Thomas’s new performance “I Looked Up at the Sky and I, Imagined All of the Stars Were My Sisters”.
