Susana Pilar | Resilience

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Susana Pilar, "Resilience"

Courtesy of the Gallery.

Closing Reception: October 22, 2022 from 7 - 10 PM

Performance of Historias Negras: October 22, 2022 at 8 PM

Featuring a number of recent video and photographic works, Pilar highlights the interaction of race and gender to reveal its effects on the everyday experiences of Black women. Using her black body as the site of confrontation and resistance, she examines how Black women disproportionally face sexual violence and exploitation, both physically and ideologically.

“In a world where people are trying to steal your history, attack your cause, dismiss your voice and/or live on you, you have to look inside yourself, listen to your voice and move forward no matter what. This is what I am committed to doing.”

(Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo, 2022)

Exhibition Text:

Onward Ever, Backwards Never!

For centuries Black women have been discriminated against, exploited, and alienated. Today, the same experience continues, although, it happens in more subtle ways that are harder to determine. Nevertheless, the impact is real and evident in the underrepresentation of Black women in professional occupations and their marginal and invisible presence in society. The fight against race and gender discrimination requires transparency and accountability to tackle the persistent systematic issue.

Pilar highlights in her work this interaction of race and gender to show its effect on everyday experiences of Black women. Pilar’s feminist perspective, foregrounds blackness, and womanhood as key issues to be considered.Using her black body as the site of confrontation and resistance, she examines how physically, and ideologically Black women disproportionally face sexual violence and exploitation.

Historically, these women have been denigrated and subject to racist abuse. While this has changed over time, Black women continue to encounter resistance that undermines their ability to thrive. Too often the public narrative about women has focused primarily on the experiences of white women, while the challenge should be addressing the biases playing out across races and ethnicities. Left unaddressed, Black women have been challenging how discrimination and stereotypes become entrenched in workplaces and everyday life. Pilar uses her body to target these discriminatory practices, by advocating for transparency and accountability.

In this exhibition, several works address how concretely and conceptually the Black female body is subjected to overt and discreet acts of discrimination. In the exhibition, Confrontación, and Resistencia, both respond to external forces acting on the body. The former captures the female subject gradually coming into view as it runs towards the camera but is abruptly stopped by crashing into a glass wall. This invisible barrier is something felt rather than seen. The glass represents an impenetrable barrier that excludes Black women from social empowerment. This experience is something that lives not only within institutions, but also in our unconscious lives. Resistencia on the other hand, documents her body standing still and gradually transforming because of exposure to the extreme force in the wind. While this external force is causing her body to change, we observe her struggle to stand in place. This action represents a refusal and resistance to give into external pressures.

Both works portray a struggle against white patriarchy and its abuse and exploitation of Black women. Pilar adopts codes, and metaphors to illustrate narratives from her personal life to critique the prevalence of entrenched biases rooted in race and sexuality. Her work pursues new strategies to tackle these problems directly through radical actions. Pilar’s work aims to challenge perceptions and practices that have neglected to recognize the interaction of multiple oppressions, which have kept Black women subordinate.

-Tumelo Mosaka

Susana Pilar was born in Cuba in 1984. From 2011 to 2013 she did a Postgraduate course in New Media, Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG) with DAAD Scholarship, Germany. From 1998 until 2008 she studied in the Fine Arts Academy “San Alejandro” and the High Institute of Arts (ISA) in Havana, Cuba.

She has been artist in residency of Caribbean Linked VI 2021 (virtual edition), CAD+SR 2019-20 Research Fellowship in Italy and Kenya (2019-2022); as well as Guest Professor with the Peter and Irene Ludwig Grant at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary, 2020.Among group shows and international venues we can mention the Berlin Biennale, Germany (2022), 14th Dakar Biennale, Senegal (2022), 6th Lubumbashi Biennale, République Démocratique du Congo (2019); 13 Havana Biennale, Cuba (2019); Resilience and Resistance in African Diaspora, New Museum of African Civilizations, Dakar, Senegal (2018); 56th International Art Exhibition, Cuban Pavilion, Venice, Italy (2015); 1st Biennale of International Contemporary Art, Martinique (2013); Prome encuentro Bienal Arte Contemporaneo di Caribe, Aruba (2012); III Biennale Arts Actuels Réunion, Reunion island (2011) and the 7th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea (2008).

On October 22, 2022 at 8 PM, Pilar will present the performance Historias Negras, a gestural investigation which delves into the artist’s African ancestry from the Congo and Sierra Leone, and the enduring, embodied memory of slavery. First presented in Dakar, Senegal—the largest center for the slave trade to America between the 16th to 19th centuries—at the Biennale of Contemporary African Art in May 2022, Pilar sits with hands tied behind her back while folding black origami birds with her feet. Through this act of dispersion, Pilar highlights the fragmented imprints between the Cape Verde Peninsula and African descendants in the Americas.