Johannah Herr and Jean-Marc Superville Sovak Exhibitions

Shirley Fiterman Art Center (BMCC)

This event has ended.

The Price of Half Freedom: Manuel de Gerrit de Reus; Enslaved, Condemned Pardoned and Freed, 1641-1644 will be presented in the North Gallery and I Have Seen the Future: The American Home will be featured in the South Gallery.

Jean-Marc Superville Sovak’s The Price of Half-Freedom is the story of the first free Afro-Dutch residents in what was to become New York and the events that led to their emancipation: a murder, a trial, and a failed execution. This exhibition includes video, historic documents, a sculptural brick installation, and a sequence of large-scale prints on fabric.

Johannah Herr’s I Have Seen the Future is an immersive installation meant to evoke the experience of visiting the World’s Fairs of 1939 and 1964—with the hindsight of 2022. It includes an immersive installation with flocked architectural models, collage prints, and a large-scale model home that is reminiscent of 1960s interior design.

Both Herr and Sovak embrace research-based approaches to their work, addressing the ways in which inequity and racism inform both past and present policies of New York.