Fred Wilson (artist)

Fred Wilson (born 1954) is an American artist of African-American and Caribbean heritage. He received a BFA from Purchase College, State University of New York. Quotes I felt we were always on display. But the irony for me was that as much as we were on display, we were invisible. Am I As Much As Being Seen? Fred Wilson Collaborates With Whitney Teens,Whitney Museum of American Art(17 Dcember 2013) I want people to see these works as I see them and I try to, without hitting people over the head, allow them to think … and either make sense of it or not. At this point I had sort of shifted it because it was really about that time and that the art world was only the United States and Europe, and all these other places were just not there. I wanted people to understand that perhaps the body is just stuck in Venice, but his brain, his mind, his future was going somewhere—or was already elsewhere. Beauty is misused largely, or misunderstood. Beauty can really cover over a host of sins, like makeup ... When it gets fetishized or manipulated, it’s meant to control how you think about something. In my way, I use beauty to reveal the ugliness. Fred Wilson,Pace Gallery(Nov 1 – Dec 17, 2022) I began to get some notions about what was happening to the viewer inside these spaces. . . . I had some vague notions about how those environments made you feel, one way or the other, about the art. The works lost their individuality. The artists lost their humanity. Even I, who knew all the artists, was feeling some of these things after I installed the pieces. Everything seemed to have a certain authority,a certain power associated with wealth. If you have a collection of note, (with African pieces) that are about 100 years old, these things were not taken out through commerce but as spoils of war. And museums are loathe to return them” to their rightful owners. Some were given labels far more honest than any museum would ever sanction, such as, “Stolen from Zaire tribe, 1899. Museums change history to make it palatable for the public. I believe they say a lot about one another. The labor of one enabled the wealth of the other to exist. They know museums are not exactly connecting (with the public)They want change. . . . You work with people where they are. You don’t try to change people. . . . I’m not there to make fun of them. I respect what they do, and they become aware of that. (But) our museums are so far away from being involved in the day-to-day lives of people. The general public wonders, ‘Why is this (museum) experience different from everything outside this space? And why is no one talking about it. Just by doing a little,could do a lot. External links Category:Artists from the United States Category:1954 births Category:People from New York City Category:Living people Category:Printmakers Category:African Americans