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Blessed Avenue
Jacolby Satterwhite
As part of HYBRID Biennale (October 12 - 27, 2024), PYLON is presenting unique contemporary video works by Martine Syms, Jacolby Satterwhite and Sondra Perry. As the second part of the physical screening series ERRATIC CURRENTS, PYLON will show 'Blessed Avenue' by New York based artist Jacolby Satterwhite during the second festival weekend from October 17 - 19 at Kraftwerk Mitte in Dresden, Germany.
'Blessed Avenue' is a tribute to the artist’s late mother. Songs she recorded on cassette tape and her drawings for a fantasy QVC line of domestic products are catalysts for a clubby, S&M-themed Hieronymus Bosch-inspired music video performed by Satterwhite, Juliana Huxtable, Lourdes Leon Ciccone and DeSe Escobar, among other downtown luminaries.
Jacolby Satterwhite is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses video, performance, 3D animation, drawing, fibers and printmaking to explore themes of memory, desire, and personal and public mythology. In his video works, Satterwhite creates fantastical digital landscapes populated with multiple, costumed avatars of himself, engaging with hand-drawn objects and text as extensions of the body, in a seamless exchange between live performance and constructed worlds. Satterwhite's computer-generated realms—densely layered with proliferating drawings, objects and performances—encompass animated narratives of personal memory and identity.
Satterwhite was born in 1986 in Columbia, South Carolina. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Satterwhite’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions and festivals internationally, including most recently at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2023); FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (2022); Miller Institute for Contemporary Art, PA (2021); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2021); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2021); Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia (2019); Pioneer Works, New York (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019) and others.
His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Satterwhite has collaborated with several musicians, including Solange Knowles in 2019 on her visual album, “When I Get Home,” The 1975 in 2020 on the music video for “Having No Head,” and Perfume Genus in 2022 on his album, “Ugly Season.” Satterwhite’s immersive 6-channel video commission, “A Metta Prayer” was recently on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall from October 2023 to January 2024.
After three years the HYBRID Box has moved from its permanent location on the Festspielhaus front square in 2024 and has now become the HYBRID Box extended.
The HYBRID Box extended will make a temporary appearance in Dresden and beyond. In Dresden, the HYBRID Box extended 2024 will be represented by the three-part exhibition series “ERRATIC CURRENTS” in Dresden’s city center. For a total of three periods, ERRATIC CURRENTS will bring together works of art that build bridges to hidden, sometimes metaphysical territories. In the synthesis of digital precision and a dazzling indeterminacy created there, the echo of individual and collective identities can be perceived.
ERRATIC CURRENTS - Jacolby Satterwhite
October 17 - 19
Kraftwerk Mitte 7
01067 Dresden
Open Thursday - Saturday | 16 - 19h
Ermöglicht durch WIR GESTALTEN DRESDEN
Das Projekt "Kreativ.Raum.Börse“ findet in Kooperation zwischen der Landeshauptstadt Dresden und WIR GESTALTEN DRESDEN statt und wird im Rahmen des Bundesprogramms Zukunftsfähige Innenstädte und Zentren des Bundesministeriums für Wohnen, Stadtentwicklung und Bauwesen gefördert.
www.wir-gestalten-dresden.de
The screening series is in cooperation with Hellerau - European Center for the Arts Dresden and is kindly supported by the city of Dresden - Landeshauptstadt Dresden - Amt für Kultur und Denkmalschutz and Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen. Gefördert durch die Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen. Diese Maßnahme wird mitfinanziert durch Steuermittel auf der Grundlage des vom Sächsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushaltes.
'Blessed Avenue' (2018) explores the relationship between the body, technology and memory by merging dream worlds with digital spaces. The work uses 3D animations and personal fragments to re-contextualize familial memories in hyper-real landscapes. In doing so, Satterwhite poses fundamental identity questions about belonging, community and the possibility of redefining oneself within digital environments.
The piece is centred on Satterwhite’s exploration of his relationship with his late mother, Patricia Satterwhite, whose creative output – comprising drawings, lyrics and vocal recordings – provides the emotional core of the project. By combining personal narratives with high-tech artistry, Blessed Avenue offers a poignant reflection on the dynamics of intergenerational collaboration, the experience of grief, and the resilience of creative expression.
By incorporating his mother’s recordings, Satterwhite ensures the immortality of her artistic voice while simultaneously integrating it into his broader investigation of Black queer identity and futurism. This synthesis of the past and the present, of the analogue and the digital, reflects the artist’s broader engagement with themes of memory, loss and the ways in which technology can both preserve and transform personal narratives.