LESTER JULIAN MERRIWEATHER
there is a way, no matter what they say...
The Fuel Room launches with a new installation by Lester Julian Merriweather. Merriweather (b.1978) lives and works in Memphis, TN. He has exhibited in major institutions such as the Brooks Museum in Memphis, The Contemporary in Atlanta, GA, Diverseworks in Houston, TX, and Rush Arts in New York, NY.
In November 2005, Merriweather was included in Frequency, a pivotal show of 35 young black artists at Studio Museum in Harlem. In September 2006, he participated in black alphabet: conTEXTS of contemporary african american art at Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland.
In March 2007, he was instrumental in helping to organize Reasons to Riot, a show of socio-politically charged work by emerging black artists from across the country at his alma mater, Memphis College of Art.
Artist Statement:
My main interest within my art practice is restructuring the socio-economic standing of black people. I engage this discourse by examining the use/positioning of black people in various media outlets. My image selection pool consists mainly of printed ad material that has regular circulation. It is the regularity with which this type of material is disseminated that lends credence to the notion that this material helps to form societal perspective and hierarchy.
I select images that could, based on historically hierarchical ideas, promote racial/racist motives. My work questions the ideas behind social privilege, as well as some of the systems that continually perpetuate those ideas. I re-contextualize imagery from the 1960s-1990s that reflect ideas of how social positioning in advertisement has promoted notions of racial prominence and/or inferiority.