CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/10/2021

'Witch Hunt' burns bright at Hammer Museum and ICA LA

Featured image is reproduced from Witch Hunt, the catalog to the exhibition opening at Hammer and ICA LA on October 10. Presenting the work of 16 international artists at the forefront of contemporary feminism, this 224-page hardcover includes work by Leonor Antunes, Yael Bartana, Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Candice Breitz, Shu Lea Cheang, Minerva Cuevas, Vaginal Davis, Every Ocean Hughes, Bouchra Khalili, Laura Lima, Teresa Margolles, Otobong Nkanga, Lara Schnitger, Beverly Semmes and Okwui Okpokwasili, whose 2016 “Poor People’s TV Room” is featured here. “Staged as a solo performance for Witch Hunt, ‘Poor People’s TV Room’ finds the artist performing inside a booth constructed of plywood and plastic sheeting, singing short, poetic fragments,” Jamillah James writes. “The shadows that Okpokwasili casts, along with footage projected behind her of Nigerian women congregating in various sites, suggest a critical mass of bodies, the legacy of their struggle contained within her frame, their power amplifying with every gesture and word.”