Shikeith Returns to Bunker for Third Residency

Shikeith returns to Bunker for third residency. This in conjunction with a solo exhibition at August Wilson center, Idea Furnace at Pittsburgh Glass Center, and funding from Advancing Black Arts Program.

Bunker Projects is thrilled to announce the return of Shikeith (b. 1989, Philadelphia, PA) for his third artist-in-residency this July in conjunction with a solo exhibition to be held at the August Wilson Center this Fall 2018. The opportunity was made in part possible by the support of the Advancing Black Arts Fund which awarded Shikeith $20,000 in grant funding and a partnership with The Pittsburgh Glass Center’s Idea Furnace, a program that connects non-glass artists with glass artists and encourages exploration in other art forms.

“These kinds of long-term relationships between people and artists are so incredibly rich and important,” says Jessica Rommelt, executive director and founder at Bunker Projects. “I feel really fortunate that we were able to weave together Bunker's residency program with the Advancing Black Arts funding stream to create the kind of supportive space that Shikeith has been able to come back to over the last four years.”

Shikeith’s photographs, video, and sculptures capture personal and shared narratives that focus on the metamorphoses of Black manhood. Through shadowy, often dream-like compositions, his subjects, and their stories become polarized, thus making for deeply emotional and vulnerable works.

“As an artist, I am compelled through my work to cause instability in systematic constructions historically set to destroy the psychic life of black men,” says Shikeith in regards to his practice.

“It was during my first residency with Bunker Projects, that I begin developing a visual language of learning to be, as a black man, within a society that denies us our erotic possibilities. Most importantly, Bunker Projects facilitated the support and backing required to nurture my blossoming voice in visual arts and cinema, encouraging experimentation alongside community engagement, which ultimately became the foundation of my practice.”  

Since his residencies in 2014 and 2016, Shikeith has gone on to exhibit at notable institutions such as MoMA, The ICA, and The Seattle Art Museum, in addition to internationally in London, Scotland, Toronto, Poland, and Sweden. His work has been featured in Art in America, NPR, New York Magazine, i-D Magazine, Vice and The Advocate. He received his MFA in Sculpture from the Yale School of Art this year.

About Shikeith (b. 1989, Philadelphia, PA) received his BA from The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA for Integrative Art (2010) and his MFA in Sculpture from The Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2018). His work attempts an assemblage of personal truths and wonder that focuses on the metamorphoses of Black men, especially within a society that denies these men their erotic and reconciliatory potential and capital. It is the interior he considers—his own, as well as, other Black men or masculine people through emphasizing portraiture, sculpture, and filmmaking to examine the fantastic as it relates and complicates personal autobiography and self-making.

https://www.shikeith.com/
https://www.instagram.com/shikeith/
​https://vimeo.com/shikeith

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