The Supper Club
September 21, 2017 through January 13, 2018
Elia Alba, The Thespian (Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz), 2014. Archival pigment print. [Image Description: A portrait of a woman posing before a turquoise fabric background. She gazes to the left of the camera, and holds a strand of pearls to her face. The woman has short, brown, curly hair, and wears red lipstick, red nail polish, and a red dress.]
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation is pleased to present Elia Alba’s The Supper Club, a solo exhibition focused on racial politics and visual culture, on view from September 21, 2017 through January 13, 2018, at The 8th Floor. Curated by Sara Reisman, Executive and Artistic Director of The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, The Supper Club is comprised of three components: an ongoing series of socially-engaged dinners, an exhibition of 60 photographic portraits of the artists who participated in the dinner conversations, and a book scheduled for publication in 2018.
The project began in the summer of 2012 with Elia Alba photographing a group of artists of color: David Antonio Cruz, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Las Hermanas Iglesias (Lisa and Janelle Iglesias), Lina Puerta, and Mickalene Thomas. These were followed by a series of dinner conversations that engaged fifty artists of color to “give voice” to members of Alba’s artist community. There have since been 25 dinners that have explored themes like Baltimore, Race, and Identity (in honor of Freddy Gray); the 2016 shootings in Orlando and the need for sanctuary spaces; Black Female Subjectivity; Black Male Subjectivity; and Racial Subjugation in Latin American History. The series of portraits of the dinner guests, at the core of the exhibition, were inspired by Vanity Fair magazine’s annual “Hollywood Issue” and feature the guests in locations and costumes that capture their unique voices, transforming their identities into iconic images.
Press Release
Essay
Brochure
Transcript of “Baltimore, Race, and Identity: A Tribute to Freddie Gray” Supper Club
Transcript of “Finding Sanctuary: The Orlando Pulse Shooting” Supper Club
Installation views of “The Supper Club” at The 8th Floor, September 2017. Photos by Julia Gillard. Courtesy of the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.