Personified presents selections from the SCAD Museum of Art Permanent Collection that focus on the human form as a vessel with which to examine common culturally constructed ideas related to identity. The works on view demonstrate the myriad ways artists hybridize, morph, caricaturize, or embellish their figures, imbuing them with characteristics typically unrelated to the body but which ultimately emphasize their humanity.

Exhibiting modes of personification from animals to common objects, the shifting body manifests first through metamorphosis — a theme anchored in historic literary and religious sources — which sees the subject in the process of transformation, typically as a metaphor for broader themes like love, alienation, hidden fears, or growth. These works include Wangechi Mutu’s Homeward Bound (2010), which depicts a figure transmuting into a hybrid animal–machine, an expression of the raw strength of women. Other works explore the notion of the composite, in which the subject is presented as an amalgamation of an array of cultural signifiers as a reflection of the social conditions of the artist’s time, as seen in the images of luxury items that make up Rashaad Newsome’s photographic collaged portrait GAG (2015). Lastly, the adorned body is celebrated in works like Nick Cave’s Drive-By, a freewheeling film in which the artist’s iconic Soundsuits jump, roll, and dance in fluid, pulsating motion. The artist’s extravagant costumes obscure all identifying features of the wearer as well as the resulting inferences the viewer could make based on appearance, offering transcendent, joyful embodiments of empowerment.

Personified is organized by SCAD Museum of Art curator Ben Tollefson.

Image: Wangechi Mutu, "Homeward Bound," 2010, archival pigment print with silkscreen on archival paper, edition 32 of 45, 25 x 19 1/4 in. SCAD Museum of Art Permanent Collection.