ARIA DEAN on view in Beverly Buchanan: I Broke the House, a group exhibition at gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich.

Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
8093 Zürich
Switzerland

March 6–May 17, 2024
Opening: March 5, 6pm

I Broke the House at ETH Zurich spans Beverly Buchanan’s wide-ranging oeuvre of sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, writing and printed matter. It enters into dialogue with works by Senga Nengudi, Ana Mendieta, Kazuko Miyamoto, Park McArthur and Jennifer Burris, Cameron Rowland, Devin T. Mays, ARIA DEAN and Alicia Henry. As a study of Buchanan’s artwork, the exhibition gathers fragmented materials by an artist who defied official mechanisms of commemoration and classification. Her practice traces eroded surfaces of “City Ruins” on canvas and paper, researches vernacular dwellings and their “builder-occupants” in the rural South and persistently embeds long-neglected histories of anti-Black politics in their territorial surroundings. In the context of a gallery attached to an architecture school, Buchanan’s work—predicated on critical engagement with the built environment—challenges the normative formats and politics of “exhibiting architecture.” By investigating and undoing solid structures, Buchanan confronts viewers with unsettling readings of sites, buildings and memorials in solidarity with communities that resist authoritarian narratives.

Curated by gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich in collaboration with Tubman African American Museum, Macon, Georgia; Fisk University Galleries, Nashville, Tennessee; Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice (EADJ), Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. This exhibition is indebted to the Artist-in-Residence Program made possible by the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation.

For more information, please visit gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich's website.