CONNERSMITH is pleased to announce “Altar of Repose: I’m gonna lay down…” an exhibition of new multimedia works by Sheldon Scott.

As a prelude to the exhibition, concurrent with Juneteenth, the artist will debut a public performance which takes place Saturday, June 18, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm in front of CONNERSMITH at 1013 O Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001. Over the course of a full workday, he will enact leisure in a handmade hammock. This work stands in counterpoint to the performance of labor, a hallmark of Scott’s earlier artistic practice. 

Scott creates representations of leisure by augmenting hammocks crafted in the tradition of his Gullah-Geechee lineage with meaning-laden materials. “Each hammock will be made black through the processes of tarring, painting, sequinning and charring, with some containing elements such as nails and glass throughout,” the artist elaborates. He asserts, “These adornments will speak to industries where extraordinary labor practices live undergirded by hyper-capitalism, made evident in fields once established as areas of leisure, such as sports, entertainment and the arts.” Scott thereby posits the agency of rest and relaxation as forces of resistance to the commodification of Black physical and intellectual labor. He draws inspiration from Martin Puryear’s, “Ladder for Booker T. Washington,” as well as the Biblical story of Jacob’s Ladder. Scott explains, “These sources reference the thought of a ‘leisurely stroll to heaven for Black folk.’ My new body of work aims to catalyze ideation on how Black people have or have not been able to participate in rest, and more pointedly, how Black labor has been exploited for the rest of other peoples.”