CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/13/2023

‘Going Dark’ probes the stakes of being seen

Featured spreads are from Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility, published to accompany the critically acclaimed exhibition on view now at the Guggenheim. Featuring figurative work by David Hammons, Titus Kaphar and Lorna Simpson (pictured here), among more than two dozen others, Going Dark explores what it means to be seen, not seen or erased in contemporary society. Guggenheim curator Ashley James writes, “This exhibition mobilizes going dark as a concept that names the obfuscation of the figure across mediums, with a focus on painting and photography, as a means of addressing urgent and ongoing discussions around invisibility and evasion, particularly for marginalized subjects. While questions of visibility are relevant across time, this exhibition takes works from the mid-1980s, a critical art historical juncture, as a launching point, while also acknowledging developments forged by 1970s Conceptual artists. Indeed, going dark refers to the occlusion in a formal sense, with many of the artists in the show engaging in questions of perception. Through the lens of going dark emerges an (art) history embedded within a complex matrix of threat, visibility, desire, violence, perception and experimentation concomitantly, asking: what are the stakes of being seen?”