Bethany Collins stencils, erases, and obscures historic literary and musical works to illuminate the past and spotlight the development of racial and national identities. This exhibition features three artworks that draw on source materials including the ancient Greek Play Antigone, a civil war battle song rewritten by union troops in 1862, and a series of ads placed in Southern US newspapers in 1865 seeking lost family and friends in the wake of emancipation and the civil war. The exhibition places MAG’s recent acquisition of Antigone: 1998 / 1973 / 2021 / 1912 (2023) in context with her wider body of work.
About the Artist
Bethany Collins has exhibited at venues including the Seattle Art Museum; Frist Art Museum (Nashville); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AK); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles); Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Collins was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and lives and works in Chicago.