The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

Skip to main content
June 7, 2021 to January 2, 2022 | Leir Gallery, Screening Room, Project Space

Hugo McCloud: from where i stand

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum presents from where i stand, the first solo museum exhibition of Hugo McCloud. McCloud’s work has been defined by a restless experimentation, an ongoing engagement with process, an exploration of the value of labor, a concern with disparities in social and racial economics, and with the nature of beauty. McCloud’s earlier work can generally be categorized as abstraction, with its veiled subject matter growing out of his experiences of being biracial and his family’s working-class roots. These influences are evident in the materials and process he gravitates to—roofing metal, tar, and most recently plastic shopping bags. He has consistently used non-art mediums to encode social and cultural memory and to reflect on notions of race, class, and economic inequity. His latest figurative works, which were influenced by his move to Mexico in 2018, are composed of single-use plastic bags, depicting workers transporting towering piles of goods on bicycles, motorcycles, and their backs, as well as the overfilled carts of the homeless and indigent. Increasingly, his work speaks of the economics of labor and geopolitics on a fundamental level, while encapsulating the artist’s interest in global culture. from where i stand will occupy The Aldrich’s entire first floor and will include approximately thirty-five works borrowed from both private collections and the artist.

Hugo McCloud: from where i stand is organized by Richard Klein, Exhibitions Director. The exhibition will be accompanied by a book with essays by Klein and scholar and curator Lucy Kwabah Mensah.

Video

Virtual Curator Talk: Hugo McCloud

Hugo McCloud: from where i stand Walkthrough

Links



Related Products


Related News

The Painterly, Provocative Art That Uses Humble Plastic Bags, The Wall Street Journal

Artist Hugo McCloud’s first solo museum show spotlights his creative turns.

Hugo McCloud in Whitewall

Using plastic to paint, draw connections, and ask questions.



Top image: Hugo McCloud: from where i stand (installation view), The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, June 7, 2021 to January 2, 2022, Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. Photo: Jason Mandella