The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-15)

SUNDAY, MAY 15 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E3

many as they navigate the

responsibilities and demands of

living.” But the installation also

can be experienced as a place out

of time, a room just big enough

for visitors to take a few steps

into an idealized past.

Azikiwe Mohammed: Shared

Words, Split Catfish and Sweet

Tea: An Open Platform for

Discussion Through May 21 at

Transformer, 1404 P St. NW.

Helen Zughaib

When Helen Zughaib showed

her “Syrian Migration” series at

the Jerusalem Fund Gallery Al

Quds three years ago, it

comprised 25 paintings. Now the

Arab American D.C. artist’s oft-

exhibited commentary on the

exodus from a devastated Syria

has grown to 43 pictures, and is

on display just a few blocks away

in a much more visited location:

the Kennedy Center, where

Zughaib is a social practice

resident.

The paintings are in Zughaib’s

trademark mode, executed

primarily in gouache with bold

colors and simple, stylized

forms. But the artist took

inspiration, sometimes even

reworking specific

compositions, from the 60-panel

“Migration Series” in which

Jacob Lawrence documented

Black Americans’ early-20th-

century journey out of the

South. (Half of Lawrence’s series

is owned by the Phillips

Collection.) In one of Zughaib’s

updates, for example,

Lawrence’s train gates offering

passage to the North become

airport portals leading to Turkey

and Europe.

The Syrians are usually

outfitted in robes with vibrant,

two-toned stripes that suggest

both traditional clothing and

abstract color-field painting. The

exuberant garb contrasts with

explosions, barbed-wire fences,

fighter planes overheard and

waves that threaten to swallow

small, overloaded boats. To see

such perils depicted in Zughaib’s

bright, tidy style is jarring and

poignant.

Helen Zughaib: Syrian Migration

Through May 27 at the Hall of

Nations, Kennedy Center, 2700 F St.

NW.

space, the size of a cramped

dining room where only three

people can sit at the table, since

the table’s fourth side has to fit

against the wall. That’s how

Azikiwe Mohammed has placed

the central piece of furniture in

his exhibition, “Shared Words,

Split Catfish and Sweet Tea: An

Open Platform for Discussion.”

Three members of the Auntie/

Uncle Julius family, depicted by

two-sided paintings on cutout

panels, are seated for a meal that

exemplifies African American

foodways.

The bulk of Mohammed’s

multimedia installation is

painted. In addition to the

diners, the New York artist has

simulated paneling on the walls,

which are hung with naive-style

pictures that mostly depict

edibles. But the food on the main

table and the smaller sideboard

is represented by glowing neon

outlines. Also included are found

objects, including cut-glass

serving containers and fancy

ladies’ hats of the sort worn to

traditional Black churches, and

recordings of possible

dinnertime conversations.

According to the gallery’s

statement, the show is part of

“Mohammed’s reflections upon

Black people’s relationship to

time — a scarcity and luxury for

MIKE DU JOUR B Y MIKE LESTER

IN THE GALLERIES

illustrating how life journeys can

lead to entirely unexpected

destinations.

Water imagery abounds in

Elizabeth Curren’s “Impact,” also

at Studio, but human destiny is

seen differently by the artist’s

handsome prints, paintings and

handmade books. Her subject is

climate change, represented by

dwindling glaciers and

advancing fires. Mankind’s

presence is suggested only

occasionally, notably by a few

tiny, simple houses dwarfed by

smoke and flame in

“Armageddon Approaching,” a

painting-collage. The pictorial

forms are stark and flat,

although enhanced by dappled

colors, in most of Curren’s works.

But there’s literal depth to two

“tunnel books” that develop

sequences through multiple

cutout pages. “Paradise Fire” and

“Through Blue Ice” draw the eye

into layered accounts of burning

and melting.

Studio’s third set of oceanic

views is Carolee Jakes’s

“Something Old, Something

BY MARK JENKINS

H

istory is one of the

themes of Micheline

Klagsbrun’s “Crossings”

at Studio Gallery, so it’s

fitting that the artist employs

found objects whose weathered

surfaces testify to past uses and

experiences. Lengths of

deteriorated driftwood serve as

hulls while sections of tattered

netting evoke sails in the D.C.

artist’s recent pieces, which

expand on the work in her

smaller previous exhibition,

“Night Boats.” That show was

inspired by a ship’s log of the

1941 voyage that Klagsbrun’s

Holocaust-escaping father took

from Portugal to Britain. This

one extends the metaphor to

encompass various journeys,

psychic as well as physical, and

including the passage into death.

Many of the sculptures hang,

often in midair, as if to simulate

the precariousness of a ship at

sea. Some of the banner pieces

are ghostly white-on-cobalt

cyanotypes or include backdrops

made with the process, best

known for its use in

architectural blueprints. Most of

the free-standing, ship-like

assemblages are small, but

“Night Boat of the Golden

Moon,” whose twisting wooden

base is painted white, stretches

more than eight feet. The found

objects are “seemingly fragile yet

in fact resilient,” notes the

artist’s statement.

Among Klagsbrun’s notable

influences is Ovid’s

“Metamorphoses,” whose tales of

transformation — often of

women altered by imperious

gods — suit the artist’s interest

in protean forms. This show

features a few works titled after

lines from Victorian-age British

poet Gerard Manley Hopkins,

such as “Laced With Fire,” whose

jagged voids were singed by

actual flame. Hopkins, whose

verse didn’t attract a following

until decades after his death,

seems an apt reference for

“Crossings.” The poet was a self-

styled traditionalist who came to

be seen as a modernist,

Coming to the table for

more than just a meal

philosophical or environmental

parables, their ingenious

compositions have a narrative

flair.

Micheline Klagsbrun: Crossings ;

Elizabeth Curren: Impact ; and

Carolee Jakes: Something Old,

Something New Through May 21 at

Studio Gallery, 2108 R St. NW.

Azikiwe Mohammed

Transformer is an intimate

New,” a show of paintings, prints

and one mixed-media work.

Included are woodblocks of

intricate, nautilus-like forms

underwater and a “Tsunami” in

which loosely painted waves

crest behind a hard-edge globe.

That picture’s contrast between

surges and circles continues in

“Just Another Cloudy Day in

May,” a striking triptych in

which the center panel is higher

than the two flanking it. If

Jakes’s landscapes don’t present

ALBERT TING/TRANSFORMER

A view of Azikiwe Mohammed’s exhibit “Shared Words, Split

Catfish and Sweet Tea: An Open Platform for Discussion.”

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