Rodney McMillian: The Land: Not Without a Politic

Daring work exploring the complex connections between history and contemporary culture

The work of American artist Rodney McMillian (born 1969) includes painting, sculpture and installations as well as video, performance and sound works. His focus is on the role of Black people in art history and within the context of contemporary American life. In its thematic and formal rigor, following the trajectory set out by American Abstract Expressionism and socially critical Postminimalism, McMillian’s work goes far beyond this simple classification. In dealing with economic status, race, gender and tradition, it becomes a material treatise on the social fabric of the US. Aspects of his work negotiate between the body politic and a politicized body.The Land: Not Without a Politic reproduces the first European survey exhibition that ran at MARTA Herford and embeds it in the broader context of McMillian’s oeuvre and diverse social and art historical discourses.