The MW Gallery is presenting “Figuratively Speaking,” an exhibition highlighting artworks that tell a story, opening today on Friday, February 14 and running through August 23 in downtown Flint.
Art has long been a means of communicating ideas and feelings, including those that may be difficult to put in words. In this exhibit, artists use the human form to communicate identity, social commentary and shared emotions and experiences. Relying on body language, gestures and facial expressions, they convey narratives that are fully realized and others with endings to be completed by the viewer.
“Figuratively Speaking” is drawn from the wide-ranging Mott-Warsh Collection and includes work in a variety of media by acclaimed artists, such as Robert Arneson, Emilio Cruz, Richard Hunt, Ayanna Jackson, Isaac Julien, Titus Kaphar, Jacob Lawrence, Carolyn Mazloomi, Joshua Rainer, Amy Sherald, Mickalene Thomas and Deborah Willis, among others.
MW Black Box Gallery will feature: Kehinde Wiley, “Smile,” 2001/2016, Video, 90 minutes. Looped.
“Smile” is a four-channel video artwork Kehinde Wiley began while completing his MFA at Yale University in 2001. The artist revisited the project 15 years later, once again asking young men he found on the streets of New York to smile unceasingly in front of a camera for one hour. Within the video, the young men can be seen stoically submitting to discomfort and humiliation as their expressions distort under the pain and duress of the pursuit to appear happy.
“Figuratively Speaking” opens Friday, February 14, 2025, and will be on view through August 23, 2025. MW Gallery is located at 815 S. Saginaw St., Flint, MI 48502. The gallery entrance is on E. Court St. Gallery hours are Thursdays and Fridays, 11 am. – 6 p.m.; Saturdays 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.; and the 2nd Friday of each month 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. for Flint ARTWALK.
MW Gallery is open to the general public and admission is always free. Please call (810) 835-4900 or visit http://www.m-wc.org for more information.
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About MW Gallery and the Mott Warsh Collection
MW Gallery is the permanent home of the Mott-Warsh Collection (MWC)—a privately owned, publicly shared fine art collection that comprises over 1100 works by artists of the African diaspora and those who reflect on it. The gallery features expansive exhibitions drawn from the collection and facilitates community engagement with art through its programs.
The MWC was established by Maryanne Mott and her late husband, Herman Warsh in 2001. Their primary intent was to bring art into non-traditional venues where it could be encountered by people as they went about their daily lives. They formed community partnerships with institutions that had an interest in making the collection visible to their memberships, clients, visitors and participants.
Today, rotating exhibits of MWC artworks can be found in the public library, churches, health clinics, colleges, universities and more in the greater Flint region. The collection also lends to internationally and nationally touring museum exhibitions.
