Insistent Presence is organized into three sections exploring the presence and absence of the human body. The first section, “The Body in Society,” explores how identity is shaped through isolation, proximity, and interaction among figures depicted in groups or individually. The second section, “The Artist is Present,” examines artists’ use of their own bodies as their primary artistic medium. Works in the final section, “The Absent Body,” remain resolutely non-figurative. Accessories and accoutrements prompt the viewer to form a mental image of the body. Each section in Insistent Presence highlights 21st-century ways of being in the world and invites us to reflect on ourselves, our relationships, and the worlds we inhabit.  

Artists represented in the exhibition span the continent of Africa, from Tunisia and Egypt to Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa. Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania are also among the countries represented. The works are drawn from the Chazen Museum of Art’s Contemporary African Art Initiative, a five-year project supported by the Straus Family Foundation that built upon several contemporary African artworks the Chazen collected in the late 1990s. The exhibition opened at the Chazen in 2023. 

This exhibition, which is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, is organized by the Chazen Museum of Art and presented by the Palmer Museum of Art.  The Palmer Museum of Art’s presentation of the exhibition is overseen by Amanda Hellman, Director, with support provided by the Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean’s Chair in the College of Arts and Architecture. 

Above: Nana Yaw Oduro (Ghanaian, b. 1994) PHILIP, 2019, inkjet print, 19-5/8 x 29-1/2 inches. Sara Guyer and Scott Straus Contemporary African Art Initiative made possible by the Straus Family Foundation, 2021.28.3

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How Much A Heart Can Hold invites the viewer to explore Petah Coyne’s work as a multifaceted and long-running conversation about the complexity and creativity of women.

It is divided into three sections: Women’s Work, Women’s Relationships, and Women Obscured & Transformed. Originally intended as an exhibition organizational structure that avoided the pull of a chronological arrangement, it is now clear that all the works reside in each of the categories, and now these three threads weave and plait together as part of a more nuanced understanding not only of Coyne’s oeuvre, but also how a single artist’s work is intertwined and in dialogue with friends and creatives both near in time and space, and long past or far afield.

Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold was organized by the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Generous support for this exhibition was provided by Stephen and Pamela Hootkin, and the Anonymous Fund. The Lowe Art Museum’s presentation was made possible by Beaux Arts Miami; the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the Funding Arts Network; the City of Coral Gables; Galerie Lelong, New York; the Lowe Advisory Council; and Lowe Members. It was sponsored in part by the State of Florida through the Division of Arts and Culture and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Insistent Presence now on view at the Carlos presents more than forty works of sculpture, painting, ceramics, printmaking, and photography by twenty-three contemporary artists living and working on the African continent and in the diaspora.  Insistent Presence examines how artists have reimagined the human figure as a lens to pose questions about social and political histories, contested identities, and the possible future of how we relate to one another. The exhibition title was inspired by renowned African art scholars and curators Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu. These scholars point to the enduring usefulness of depicting the human figure for artists keen on affirming the humanity of Africans and those critical of postcolonial governments. In this exhibition, artists provocatively explore the human body through juxtapositions of those political concerns with emotions and passions of everyday lived experiences.

The exhibition and its accompanying publication are organized into three discrete sections along the notions of the presence and absence of the human body. The first section, “The Body in Society,” explores how identity is shaped through isolation, proximity, and interaction among figures depicted in groups or individually. These artists are concerned with the human form as an avenue for expressing the intersections and ruptures between privately and socially constructed identities. The second section, “The Artist Is Present,” examines artists’ production strategies of using their own bodies as the primary medium. These artists share their personal histories through theatrical performances, photography, and sculpture.  Works in the final section, “The Absent Body,” remain resolutely non-figurative. Accessories and accouterments prompt the viewer to form a mental image of the body. Each section in Insistent Presence highlights twenty-first-century ways of being in the world and invites us to reflect on ourselves, our relationships, and the worlds we inhabit. The works expand the museum’s permanent collection while also strengthening the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s collaborative relationships with living artists and contemporary organizations on the African continent.

Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection was organized by The Chazen Museum of Art at The University of Wisconsin–Madison and curated by Guest Curator Margaret Nagawa. Generous support for this exhibition was provided by the Straus Family Foundation.

This exhibition has been made possible in Atlanta by the generous financial support of the Charles S. Ackerman Fund, the Carlos Museum Endowment, the Carlos Museum National Leadership Board, the Mellon Teaching and Training Endowment, and the Carlos Museum Permanent Collection Conservation Fund.

Above: Nana Yaw Oduro (Ghanaian, b. 1994), PHILIP, 2019, inkjet print, 19 5/8 x 29 1/2 in., Sara Guyer and Scott Straus Contemporary African Art Initiative made possible by the Straus Family Foundation, 2021.28.3

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