Boundary pushing

“A Natural Turn,” curated by Ionit Behar and up at DePaul Art Museum, centers the impossibility of articulating the boundaries between the real and the artificial. With work by artists María Berrío (Colombian), Joiri Minaya (Dominican-United Statesian), Rosana Paulino (Brazilian), and Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Indo-Guadeloupean), the show tackles the elusiveness of the self for women of color within the mirrored world of colonialism, racism, and late capitalism. While there is no single idea of “woman” or “Latinidad” that the show champions, at the center of the exhibition lies an incisive critique of the myths of individuality. 

“A Natural Turn,” installation view, DePaul Art Museum 2022Credit: Dabin Ahn

Behar’s“Turn”forces viewers to question who has the privilege to access the mantle of personhood under the eyes of the collective. In lieu of definitive statements or overarching theses, the exhibition offers something much more interesting: ambivalence and complexity, a refusal of easy answers. For instance, in artist Joiri Minaya’s 2017 video documentation of a performance entitled Containers (the title of the work taken from the wearable pieces Minaya performs in), she states, “I am not a flower,” while partially emerged in the “container” that covers her body in a tropical floral print. A flower here is never just a flower—nor is a snake plant, a motherland, a piece of cake, a mother, or the person you see when you look in the mirror.

With emotional and artistic depth, “A Natural Turn” makes space for refusal, rebellion, and play by making a home in the in-between spaces. Wholeness here is a myth, but in the fissures and cracks, liberation grows. 

 “A Natural Turn: María Berrío, Joiri Minaya, Rosana Paulino, and Kelly Sinnapah Mary”Through 2/19: Wed-Thu 11 AM-7 PM, Fri-Sun 11 AM-5 PM, DePaul Art Museum, 935 W. Fullerton, resources.depaul.edu/art-museum

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