Kandis Williams

Williams was born in 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland. Due to her love of painting, she would go on to study art in high school at a local art high school and be accepted in to the Cooper Union School of Art in 2003.{{Cite web |title=INTERVIEW: Artist Kandis Williams Is Giving History A Hard Read |url=https://archive.pinupmagazine.org/articles/interview-kandis-williams-cassandra-press |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=archive.pinupmagazine.org |language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Melissa|date=2019-06-27|title='You Start the Game Tired': What It's Like to Be One of the Few Black Students at an Elite Art School|url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/black-students-art-school-1585906|access-date=2021-07-19|website=Artnet News|language=en-US}} She found her time there to be a struggle as professors were not as receptive to a black student making art of black people. Many of her professors dismissed the idea of making art of black people just to make art of black people. She would quickly be disillusioned by the white artist scene and the conceptual art focus her professors had. in 2009, Williams would graduate with her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Cooper Union.{{Cite web |title=Kandis Williams - Artists - Night Gallery |url=https://www.nightgallery.ca/artists/kandis-williams/cv |access-date=2024-02-22 |website=www.nightgallery.ca |language=en}}

After college, Williams completed a couple residences. Her first was in 2016 at the Ace Hotel's art residency, where artist are invited to turn one of the hotel rooms into their studio for a month.{{Cite web |title=Artist In Residence |url=https://acehotel.com/artist-in-residence/ |access-date=2024-02-22 |website=Ace Hotel |language=en}} This is where Williams created reader, Culture of Fuccboi. Her next residency would be at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and she stayed there from May 10–June 19, 2021.{{Cite web |title=2021 Field Workshop Artists In Residence |url=https://www.theicala.org/en/learning/55-2021-field-workshop-artists-in-residence |access-date=2024-02-22 |website=Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles |language=en}} During this same year, she would also complete a residency at Cassandra Classrooms.

After William's time in college, she went on to work as a teach in non-profit that taught undeserving youth in community centers and shelters.{{Cite web |title=Kandis Williams |url=https://www.flaunt.com/blog/art-kandis-williams |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=www.flaunt.com}} Her time there opened her eyes to different art practices and visual language of violence through the lens of her students. Some time after, she would move to Berlin, Germany for about twelve years before moving to Los Angeles. She would become a visiting faculty member at California Institute of the Arts in 2019 and ending her time there in 2021. Additionally, she would start teaching in Cassandra Classrooms during 2020 which she teaches at to this day. After ending her time at California Institute of the Arts, she would become a workshop instructor at Haus der Kulturen Der Welt Illiberal Arts Workshop.

During her teaching career and artist practice, Williams would give artist talks and performances all over America and Europe in the years 2014 to 2021.

Kandis Williams' work often explores contemporary critical theory including, but not limited to, racial-nationalism, authority, and eroticism. Many of these topics draw from her experiences growing up in Baltimore and her time teaching, and she will incorporated it with historic paintings such as The Slav Epic. She collages images pulled from magazines and archival material to create heavily structured visual dialogues. Additionally, she often goes on production trips to Mexico to manufacture collage elements, and these trips also inspire her works. To this day, she is still inspired by El Lissitzky and Dziga Vertov. Likewise, her performance art explores Institutional racism through a process she calls experimental Pedagogy.

• A Line, 52 Walker, New York, New York (2021){{Cite web|url=https://www.52walker.com/exhibitions/kandis-williams-a-line|title=Kandis Williams: A Line|website=52 Walker|language=en-US|access-date=2022-05-13}}

This was her debut show in New York at the David Zwirner gallery in Tribeca.{{Cite news |last1=Mitter |first1=Siddhartha |last2=Burke |first2=Siobhan |date=2021-10-28 |title=Kandis Williams Envisions Dancing Bodies Without Borders |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/arts/design/kandis-williams-ebony-haynes-52-walker.html |access-date=2024-02-21 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

A Line features large-scale collages of archival photographs of dancers and choreographers featuring icons, such as Alvin Ailey, George Balanchine, and Martha Graham, in addition to Williams own photographs. Some of these collages are annotated with William's thoughts about performance and politics. In addition, there was a video installation presented on old school monitors, and it shows a dancer working through a dance William's choregraphed. There is an archival video that flickers on a background screen within each screen. Large artificial plants are scattered across the gallery, and some leaves are covered in flesh tones to return attention to the body.

• A Field, Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond, Virginia (2020 - 2021){{Cite web|last=Kollatz Jr.|first=Harry|date=2020-12-15|title=Art of Growth and Power|url=https://richmondmagazine.com/api/content/83e07dd8-28d5-11eb-a475-1244d5f7c7c6/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-08|website=Richmond Magazine|language=en-us}}{{Cite book |last=Huseman |first=Beth |title=Whiney Biennial 2022 Quiet as It's Kept |date=2022 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-26389-3 |location=Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |pages=2}}

This was her first solo show, and it ran from November 6, 2020 - September 12, 2021.{{Cite web|date=2021-03-05|title=Meet Artist Kandis Williams, Whose Poetic Work Has a Sharp, Cerebral, and Radically Political Edge|url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/kandis-williams-profile-1949079|access-date=2021-04-09|website=Artnet News|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|title=Kandis Williams: A Field|url=https://icavcu.org/exhibitions/kandis-williams-a-field/|access-date=2021-04-09|website=Institute for Contemporary Art|language=en-US}}

A Field is a green house filled with plant sculptures made of collages pasted on wire forms. The collages featured on the plant leaves and backdrops are of action shots of laboring bodies. She uses photos from archival documentation of Mississippi chain gangs, images from Vintage Magazines, and depictions of Uruguayan tango dancers. The work as a whole comments on the relation between labor, performance, and sexualization. In addition to the plants, there is a live video, Annexation Tango (2020), that is a combination of photography and found footage. The backgrounds of the video are the former Lorton Reformatory and [https://richmond.com/from-the-archives/from-the-archives-virginia-state-prison-farm/collection_bcc2556b-f1f9-536b-9a34-761a73f7c96f.html Virginia State Prison Farm], where prisoners worked as condition for their sentence.{{Cite web|last=Kollatz|first=Harry Jr.|date=2020-12-15|title=Art of Growth and Power|url=https://richmondmagazine.com/api/content/83e07dd8-28d5-11eb-a475-1244d5f7c7c6/|access-date=2021-04-09|website=richmondmagazine.com|language=en-us}}

• The Rivers of Styxx, Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada (2018)
• Eurydice, 219 Madison, Brooklyn, New York (2018){{Cite web|url=http://www.nightgallery.ca/news/kandis-williams-at-219-madison-st|title=Kandis Williams at 219 Madison St. - News - Night Gallery|website=www.nightgallery.ca|access-date=2019-04-11}}
• Works on Paper, Vienna (2017){{Cite web|url=https://wopwien.com/wop/kandis-williams?lang=en|title=Kandis Williams|website=WORKS ON PAPER|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-11}}
• Soft Colony, Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2016){{cite web |title=Kandis Williams: Soft Colony 👀 |url=https://curate.la/event.php?id=7079 |website=Curate LA}}
• Disfiguring Traditions, SADE, Los Angeles, CA (2016){{cite web |last1=Williams |first1=Maxwell |title=Bearing Wit(h)ness: The Art of Kandis Williams |url=https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/kandis-williams-artist-collages-sade-human-resources-one-archives |website=KCET |language=en |date=18 November 2016}}
• Inner States, St. Charles Projects, Baltimore, Maryland 2016){{Cite web|url=http://www.stcharlesprojects.com/www.stcharlesprojects.com/3._INNER_STATES.html|title=3. INNER STATES|website=www.stcharlesprojects.com|access-date=2019-04-11}}
• Red Square, OTTOZOO Project, Milan, Italy (2012)
• The Vesica Dialectic, Ficken 3000, Berlin, Germany (2009)

• Fragile, Berlin (2019) {{Cite web|url=https://www.fragile.berlin/kandis-williams|title=Fragile}}
• A Woman's Work, a PopRally event at MoMA organized by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah - (2018){{cite web |title=PopRally Presents Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah: A Woman's Work {{!}} MoMA |url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4302 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |language=en}}
• Human Resources Los Angeles - (2016){{Cite web|url=http://humanresourcesla.com/event/affect-network-territory-a-performance-of-syllogisms-in-motion/|title=Affect network territory a performance of syllogisms in motion|website=humanresourcesla.com|access-date=2019-04-11}}

• Death of A, The Whitney Biennial 2022, Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles (2022)
• Affect: Network: Territory, The Underground Museum, Los Angeles (2016)
• Stains in the Cowshed, Neu West, Berlin (2015){{Cite web |date=5 June 2015 |title=Art & Feminism // 5 Berlin Artists Who Happen to Be Feminists |url=https://www.berlinartlink.com/2015/06/05/art-feminism-5-berlin-artists-who-happen-to-be-feminists/ |access-date=2019-04-11 |website=Berlin Art Link |language=en-US}}
• A Constellation, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015){{cite web |title=Kandis Williams {{!}} paralysis II (2014) {{!}} Artsy |url=https://www.artsy.net/artwork/kandis-williams-paralysis-ii |website=www.artsy.net |language=en}}
• The Oracle, The Underground Museum, Los Angeles (2014)
• Artist Talk 68, Projects, Berlin (2014)
• The Breeder, Athens Greece (2013){{Cite web|url=http://thebreedersystem.com/exhibition-details/notemple/|title=NOTEMPLE {{!}} THE BREEDER|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-11}}

Williams co-founded the non-profit Cassandra Press in 2016 with Taylor Doran, and Jordan Nassar. The organization distributes lo-fi activist and academic texts, flyers, posters, pamphlets, and readers as well as offer classes and exhibitions.{{Cite web|last=Marine|first=Brooke|date=September 2, 2020|title=Cassandra Press Redefines the Way Black Critical Theory Is Taught|url=https://www.wmagazine.com/story/cassandra-press-redefines-the-way-black-critical-theory-is-taught|access-date=2021-07-19|website=W Magazine|language=en}} They also offer artist zines at a affordable price on their website. The mission statement of the organization is to spread ideas and language, propagate dialogue centering ethics, femme-driven activism, and black scholarship.

The name is a reference to the Trojan princess Cassandra, who was said to have accurately foretold the future yet no one would believe her.

To this day, Williams works as a publisher and as an editor for the Cassandra Press. Notable works include: Misogynoir, Reparations, Double Consciousness Then and Now, Libidinal Economy, and Faces of the Colonizer.

• 2021 Mohn Award (Hammer Museum) — $100,000{{Cite web|last=Vankin|first=Deborah|date=2021-07-15|title=Hammer Museum's $100,000 Mohn Award goes to Kandis Williams|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-07-15/hammer-museum-kandis-williams-mohn-award-winner|access-date=2021-07-19|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}}

{{Reflist}}

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• [https://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/tag/kandis-williams/ Kandis Williams - Contemporary Art Daily]
• [https://www.culturedmag.com/kandis-williams-young-artists-2018/ KANDIS WILLIAMS: YOUNG ARTISTS 2018 - cultured mag]
• [https://canadianart.ca/interviews/like-no-ones-looking/ Like No One's Looking - canadianart]

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Category:Living people

Category:African-American artists

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:21st-century African-American people