The exhibition explores a shift in the rhetoric of race from an earlier emphasis on inclusion to a present moment where racial identity is being simultaneously rejected and retained. The exhibition brought together works by black and non-black artists whose work together examined a moment where the cultural production of so-called “blackness” is concurrent with efforts to make race socially and politically irrelevant.

Artists in the exhibition include: Terry Adkins, Edgar Arceneaux, Elizabeth Axtman, Jonathan Calm, Paul D’Amato, Deborah Grant, Todd Gray, Shannon Jackson, Thomas Johnson, Jason Lazarus, David Levinthal, Glenn Ligon, David McKenzie, Rodney McMillian, Jerome Mosley, Virginia Nimarkoh, Demetrius Oliver, Sze Lin Pang, Carl Pope, William Pope.L, Robert A. Pruitt, Randy Regier, Daniel Roth, Joanna Rytel, Andres Serrano, Hank Willis Thomas, and Mickalene Thomas.

This exhibition is curated by Hamza Walker and organized by The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and made possible by an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award, with additional support from the Woods Fund of Chicago.For generous support of this exhibition and the 2009-2010 exhibition series, the Artspace gratefully acknowledges the Richard J. Stern Foundation, the H&R Block Foundation, the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and Boulevard Brewing Company.