Press: Travis Somerville

ARTFORUM: Critics' Pick

Travis Somerville
BEN MALTZ GALLERY AT THE OTIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
9045 Lincoln Boulevard
October 3–December 12

"Travis Somerville’s work addresses the tangled knot of issues surrounding the history of race in America. Using such loaded images as a noose, hooded clansmen, and the Confederate flag in a self-consciously liberal way is laced with difficulties, yet Somerville takes such challenges on with gusto in a new exhibition, “Dedicated to the Proposition.” Conceptualized as a contemporary response to Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address, the exhibition is fraught with aggressive images, including a sculpture of Lincoln’s head on a ball and chain, and assorted representations of people in blackface."