In a world riddled with injustice and predicated on privilege for the few at the expense of the many, what does it mean to be well? An exhibition opening Friday at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee considers the effects of concealed trauma and the inextricable ties between personal health and collective wellness.
No One Knows All It Takes invites four artists—Bryana Bibbs, Raoul Deal, Maria Gaspar, and Swoon (previously)—who utilize art-making to grapple with complex emotions, imagine solutions to widespread problems, and share their stories and those of others. The timely exhibition, curated by Colossal, brings forth pressing issues like addiction, incarceration, immigration, and a lack of support for caregivers, conveyed through visually arresting works across media.
No One Knows All It Takes opens with portraits by Deal, intimate renderings made through hours of conversations with the subjects. Paired with his wooden sculptures, the elaborate carvings explore the central role of immigration in American history and culture. Bibbs’ weavings and monotype prints—created while she cared for her dying grandparents with many of their belongings— follow as a sort of ghostly archive of what remains after death.
Swoon’s “Medea” fills the fourth gallery space, a deeply personal installation that the artist made, in part, to confront her mother’s lifelong struggle with addiction and mental illness. An exposed tarantula mother, portraits of Swoon’s own family, wooden windows, and audio elements layer personal artifacts with recurring motifs about intergenerational trauma.
The Wisconsin iteration of Gaspar’s Disappearance Jail series tucks into a smaller, more confined space at the end of the exhibition. Featuring images of 113 prisons, jails, and juvenile and immigrant detention facilities throughout the state, the project invites visitors to use hole punches to literally remove and obscure the carceral spaces. Because incarceration has historically been the only manner in which society addresses harm and trauma, Gaspar’s work tasks each person with the abolitionist exercise of imagining other possibilities.
The title, No One Knows All It Takes, came from a conversation with Bibbs, in which she described the emotional, mental, and physical toll of caring for her grandparents in their final months. Referencing the intersecting and multilayered effects of trauma, the phrase is also multivalent: it invokes the immense amount of energy needed to function while ill, the wide-reaching impacts of trauma on an individual’s life, and the social, political, and cultural costs of unaddressed issues.
No One Knows All It Takes will be on view from August 22 to December 20. The Haggerty Museum of Art is located at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
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