Marcus Herse

 Politically Private presents a variety of artworks, from paintings to installations, that investigate the basis of identity, and its inherent relationship to politics and public display. Using disparate media the six artists share an interest in how individuality interacts with notions of race, citizenship, and family.

During the ‘Era of Trump’ now more than ever, our political identities have created salient cleavages within society. In a world of labels and hierarchies, we have all been reduced to simple binaries of categorization (male vs. female, straight vs. gay, cis. vs. trans, white vs. non-white, rich vs. poor, etc.). Furthermore, the true intersectional stories of those marginalized to the fringe are often ignored altogether. Politically Private explores the raw meaning of the self and the political, questioning how cultural identity predates our individual lives. Do we get to write our own biographies, or are our stories foretold by ancestral blood lines? 

Whether complicit or not, a political identity is branded  upon us all. As we grow into adulthood, our identity grows out of and weaves into two directions: the personal and the political. While this sense of self reflects a much greater construction of human experience, it always traces back to home. Within society, individuals are merely small figments within a larger collective; it's in the home where we actually gain a meaning of selfhood. Since home is the domain of both belonging and individuality, when we exit this sacred space we once again are subjected to public assumptions; on private grounds we simultaneously express individuality while accepting tradition; but on public grounds our historical backgrounds categorize our personhood. Identity no longer reflects who we really are, but enters the realm of the performative and the theatrical, interweaving between personal intention and political condition. This exhausting push and pull can leave one vulnerable; however, such vulnerability may open a space for collective care. We can never assume that we all experience the same reality, but through empathy we can come together to try and understand and heal the wounds of our current social predicaments.