The Supper Club Opening
Thursday, September 21, 2017
6 to 8pm
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 presented Elia Alba's The Supper Club, a solo exhibition focused on racial politics and visual culture, which was on view from September 21, 2017 through January 12, 2018, at The 8th Floor. Curated by Sara Reisman, Executive and Artistic Director of The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, The Supper Club was 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 Spring 2019.
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.
Click here for the full press release on the exhibition.
About the Artist
Elia Alba was born in New York City. She received her BA from Hunter College in 1994 and completed the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in 2001. Her work has been exhibited at Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; RISD Museum, Providence; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Science Museum, London; ITAU Cultural Institute, São Paulo; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and the 10th Havana Biennial. Awards include Studio Museum in Harlem Artist-in-Residence program; LMCC Workspace Program; New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; and Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. Her work is in the collection of the Lowe Art Museum, Coral Galbes; El Museo del Barrio, New York; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, among others.