Tommy Kha: Eye is Another is a site-specific, photography-based installation by artist Tommy Kha exploring themes of identity, (in)visibility, and sense of place. Kha’s installation considers the idea of the eye as an extension of the mind. The exhibition’s title, Eye is Another, is a play on words inspired by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud who in 1871 wrote, “Je est un autre,” sometimes translated as “I is another,”or “I is an other.” These words suggest that our identities are complicated, that our sense of self can be other even to us, and that we may have multiple senses of self—our own identities are both familiar and alien. These views of the self resonate for Kha—growing up gay and Chinese American in the American South—and influence much of his work.

The dome in the museum’s rotunda features a photo-mosaic of an eye, composed of images of the sky from the two cities where Kha splits his time; Memphis and New York. Its shape is based on Kha’s own eye while its blue color is borrowed from Elvis—an abstract continuation of the artist’s earlier work featuring images of himself dressed as the famed singer. Surrounding the rotunda are Kha’s large-scale photographic prints of the Southern landscape. Green shag rugs resembling grass are scattered around the rotunda floor to encourage visitors to lie down and “sky” gaze. In the center is a blanket printed with a photograph, itself composed of collaged photographed items, from a typical family meal with Kha and his relatives, creating a place to gather, rest, and contemplate.

Tommy Kha: Eye is Another, curated by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art’s Associate Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Dr. Patricia Daigle. is presented as part of the inaugural, state-wide Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art organized by Tristar Arts. The triennial is guided by the theme “RE-PAIR”—to heal, suture, and recompose fractured bodies—developed by consulting curator Dr.Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons.

Artists + Curator

Tommy Kha
Tommy Kha (b. 1988, Memphis, TN) is a photographer currently working between Brooklyn, New York, and Memphis, Tennessee. He received his BFA in Photography from Memphis College of Art in 2011 and his MFA in Photography from Yale University in 2013. He is a recipient of the Next Step Award, Foam Talent, Creator Labs Photo’ Fund, and most recently named an NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Photography. Kha’s first monograph, Half, Full, Quarter, will be published by Aperture in February 2023.
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Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
Dr. Patricia Daigle

Patricia Lee Daigle is Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. She came to the Brooks in December 2021 from the Dixon Gallery and Gardens where she served as Assistant Curator. Prior to this, Patricia was Director of The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art and Visiting Assistant Professor in Art History at The University of Memphis from 2015 to 2020. A specialist in twentieth-century American art with an emphasis on race and representation, she received her Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her B.A. in Art History and Anthropology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Patricia has organized numerous highly regarded exhibitions including Jefferson Pinder: Thin Skin / Shock Layer (2019), Virginia Overton (2018), Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers): The Belhaven Republic (a delta blues), 1793-1795 (2017), and Rodrigo Valenzuela: Frontiers (2016) at The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art. From 2008-2014, Patricia worked as Curatorial Assistant in Contemporary Art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where she curated the exhibitions Living in the Timeless: Drawings by Beatrice Wood (2014) and Myth and Materiality: Latin American Art from the Permanent Collection,1930-1990 (2013) and contributed to several major exhibitions and publications including Labour and Wait (2013), Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969 (2012), Charles Garabedian: A Retrospective (2011), and Yinka Shonibare, MBE: A Flying Machine for Every Man, Woman, and Child and Other Astonishing Works (2009).

Every year, the Brooks is honored to host what some artists have called the "championships for our young artists": the Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards. The exhibition at the Brooks brings you the winning works in varied media by the Mid-South’s brightest and best student artists. Featuring more than 135 artworks by area public, private, and independently schooled youth, this visual celebration of their creativity is sure to inspire and give you hope for tomorrow.

Today’s Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards, staged and mounted at the Brooks Museum by League volunteers and the museum’s Education Department, is the most prestigious, competitive, and rewarding event of this type in the entire tri-state area. Each year, students in grades 7-12 submit more than 3,000 entries in a wide variety of categories, including painting, drawing, mixed media, photography, sculpture, graphic design, film, fashion, as well as senior art portfolios, which are reviewed by a panel of judges made up of regional artists, art educators, and other arts professionals.

Regional winners are eligible for scholarships from five regional colleges and universities as well as cash prizes totaling more than $8,000. Gold key-winning artwork is included in an exhibition at the Brooks, and all students who receive gold keys, silver keys, and honorable mention awards are invited to participate in an awards ceremony at the museum.  Gold key-winning artwork goes on to compete on the national level for additional opportunities for recognition and scholarships.

‍Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 Scholastic Art Awards!

Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to an African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) bishop father and a mother who escaped enslavement via the Underground Railroad. He later became the first African American artist to attain international recognition. Tanner initially studied with the famed American Realist painter Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts but later decided to move to Paris to study at the prestigious Acade´mie Julian art school, in part to escape the discrimination he experienced in the United States. There, he became a mentor for other Black artists such as Aaron Douglas, Palmer C. Hayden, William H. Johnson, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, and Hale Woodruff.

By 1900, Tanner cemented his position as a leading American painter in Paris and the preeminent biblical painter of his time. Tanner traveled the world throughouthis life, most notably to the Holy Land (including Egypt, Morocco, and Palestine),the subject of many of his paintings in the latter half of his career. He found much success abroad, participated in multiple Paris Salons starting in 1874, and was later named honorary chevalier (Knight) of the Order of the Legion of Honor of France in 1927, the highest French order of merit.

The Thankful Poor, titled by the artist, is one of the artist's last known “genre” paintings—images that depict everyday or ordinary domestic scenes—before he transitioned almost exclusively to religious scenes. While read differently by today’s audiences, the artist’s title aimed to honor the contributions and struggles of poor Black people in the South, where this work was likely painted. In stark contrast to the degrading imagery of African Americans that proliferated in American culture in the late nineteenth century, The Thankful Poor showcases the humanity of an impoverished older Black man and a young Black boy, as they bow their heads in a dignified prayer before a humble meal.

Henry Ossawa Tanner
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to anAfrican Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) bishop father and a mother who escapedenslavement via the Underground Railroad. He later became the first AfricanAmerican artist to attain international recognition. Tanner initially studied with thefamed American Realist painter Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academyof Fine Arts but later decided to move to Paris to study at the prestigious Acade´mieJulian art school, in part to escape the discrimination he experienced in the UnitedStates. There, he became a mentor for other Black artists such as Aaron Douglas,Palmer C. Hayden, William H. Johnson, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, and HaleWoodruff.

Museums oftendisplay the art of the African Diaspora,.*The term is regularly found in books, at events,and in curators’ job titles. But what does the term “AfricanDiaspora” mean? It often refers to art made around the world by Black artists. Yet Africa alone alone is diverse, both ethnically and culturally. Does someone have to be Black to be part of this group? Is there a difference between the African Diaspora and the Black Diaspora?Can you be African and be part of the Diaspora? Who gets to say who is part of this group?

Defining the definition of the African Diaspora remains a hotly debated topic There is general agreement among scholars that the term reflects the subjugation and marginalization of Black people, stemming from the involuntary movement from the Atlantic, Trans-Saharan, and Indian Ocean slave trades, while also including individuals who voluntarily migrate. It is a term that expresses a breadth of experiences, one that connects Black peoples across time, continents, and cultures, but it can also homogenize. It is a term that centers Blackness, while allowing for the “muddiness” of identity.

This display of historic and contemporary art questions and complicates this often-used term. It encourages us to reflect on how language can group us in ways that can be helpful and harmful. In some ways, language can elevate groups that have been deliberately overlooked, create new connections, and inspire conversations; in others, language can be restrictive by categorizing us into boxes without fully acknowledging or celebrating our fluid identities.

As conversations around the African Diaspora shift and evolve, so too will this display, aided by the museum actively acquiring works that reflect these varied, global experiences.

Curator
Blackmon-Perry Curatorial Fellow in African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora
Heather Nickels

Heather Nickels joined the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (MBMA) in August 2019 as the Joyce Blackmon Curatorial Fellow of African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora. Prior to arriving in Memphis, she completed a M.A. with Distinction in the History of Art from The Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Her dissertation focused on the short-lived “Little Paris Group” art collective and workshop, which was co-founded by two women, Lois Mailou Jones and Celine Tabary, in the 1940s and 1950s in Washington D.C. She graduated cum laude with a B.A in Art History from Barnard College in 2016. Her thesis explored the representation of servants and domestic workers in eighteenth-century French paintings. Ms. Nickels has worked for several American non- and for-profit arts institutions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Courtauld Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Sperone Westwater Gallery and Andrea Rosen Gallery. For two years, she worked as a project research associate for independent art historian Dr. Denise Murrell on the exhibition, Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today | Le Modèle noir, de Géricault à Matisse, which opened at the Wallach Gallery, Columbia University in 2018 and later traveled to the Orsay Museum in Paris.