The Red Bulletin April 2020 (US)

Akeem Smith, Untitled, 2020 (still). Multichannel video
installation with sound.
People have tried to get video footage over the
years, and as a result, people like Photo Morris are
protective of their work. “They don’t let just anyone
in, especially if they feel they’re being lowballed or
something like that. And with me, I would just never
lowball anyone that looks like me. I made sure they
got how much I would’ve paid an American person.”
It was an investment. “I really used all my money
to do it because I just feel like it’s how you start
something,” he says. “I know what money equals in
a third-world place. It’s not just a financial thing. It’s
a domino effect. It’s just going to open more doors.”
The art world has long obsessed over identity, but
in recent years, the bounds of that identity have
expanded. As the author and cultural theorist Kevin
Quashie wrote, there has been lately, when it comes
to art made by black people, a will “to move beyond
the emphasis on resistance, and to suggest that
concepts like surrender, dreaming, and waiting can
remind us of the wealth of black humanity.”
When I mention this to Smith, pointing out
connections in black cultural expression between
Lagos and Kingston and Atlanta, he rejects the
conceit. “Is it black culture just because a black
person is doing it?” he asks. “With the show, I’m
not addressing anything that is obviously black.”
Still, No Gyal Can Test is at once a study and
repudiation of identity. “People always reference
black women in hiding. I wanted it to be obvious
Akeem Smith, Untitled, 2020 (still). Multichannel video installation with sound.
this is the source of everything that I know and like
and want,” he says. “It has an element of black
portraiture, giving name to unknown subjects of
history, shit like that. We go to museums all the
time and we see people on the walls that we don’t
fucking know what they fucking contributed. It’s
like, why can’t other communities, of any color,
have the same?”
Akeem Smith: No Gyal Can Test runs April 9 to
June 28 at Red Bull Arts New York before traveling
to Red Bull Arts Detroit in the fall.
48 THE RED BULLETIN