December 8, 2023 – April 7, 2024
Nathaniel Donnett Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Dark Imaginarence
December 8, 2023 – April 7, 2024
Essay by Christopher Blay University Museum at Texas Southern University Cleburne Street Houston, Texas, 77053
Nathaniel Donnett Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Dark Imaginerance “For them, as for me, imagining is not merely looking or looking at; nor is it taking oneself intact into the other. It is, for the purposes of the work, becoming.” Toni Morrison The University Museum is pleased to present Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Dark Imaginarence, Nathaniel Donnett’s first solo exhibition at Texas Southern University. The artist’s multimedia works consider how people navigate space and time through nonlinear trajectories as they explore material and immaterial worlds—and ask how abstraction reflects our realities while offering multiple ways to perceive them. Donnett examines the role imagination plays in contending with obstacles in our lives that manifest as systemic limitations, but also constitute nuanced moments of discovery. The exhibition takes inspiration from the life of Ed Dwight, a former – Air Force pilot who almost became the first Black astronaut to enter outer space but was denied because of sociopolitical interference and racial hostility. He later reimagined himself and became a sculptor. Following that path, Donnett’s works—textiles, sculpture, installation, sound, video, and, importantly, community engagement in the form of a backpack exchange with students from historic Black neighborhoods in Houston (Third Ward, Sunnyside, Acres Homes, Fifth Ward)—combine the unknown and the embodied to search out Black cosmologies and material constellations that act as poetics, prompts, processes, and presentations for lived transformation. Donnett approaches his practice through the lens of Dark Imaginarence, a concept of art, everyday aesthetic theory, and notion(s) of Blackness that creates through abstraction and representation while forever remaining influx and experientially poetic. The exhibition also reflects on theories concerned with fugitivity, spatial understanding, and becoming: Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, which describes the house as a shelter and universe allowing for dreaming and protection; Fred Moten’s notion of enclosure and the surround, a psychological entrapment caused by social precarity; and Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopias, an engagement with the plurality of space and time. For example, the centerpiece of the exhibition, Staring at infinity through the corners of asymmetry (2023), uses reclaimed materials— foil, house paint, fabric, earring studs, light—to recreate a home that references geometries, histories embedded in the architecture’s exterior, and expansive galactic dreams on its interior. Donnett’s process is as much philosophical as it is musical—and concerned with how everyday actions and common materials hold memories and serve as witnesses to lived experiences. His recent works suggest the art studio is everywhere and that the creative or imaginative mind is constantly active, yet not always recognized. They investigate tensions between the rational and the irrational, as a route for accessing generative ways of moving, thinking, and living hidden within our subconscious that might help us reframe and redefine ourselves—and negotiate life’s constraints. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Dark Imaginarence asks: What could happen if we changed our questions from “What is the sum of two plus two?” to “What is the sum of two plus a spaceship, divided by Earth, Wind & Fire’s song ‘Devotion,’ multiplied by the first half of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Solaris?”
Monolith Transmitter Starlight Station Reclaimed school desks, duct tape picture frames, tambourine jingles 80” x 100” 2022
“Donnett weaves a cosmic suture that binds with a fine surgical filament, pulling together the disparate fabrics of Black life and culture. Backpacks, zippers, and paper operate on the real numbers that affect the real lives of real people. There is no line of demarcation between art and Donnett’s daily existence.” Ghost Dog: The Elusive and All-Encompassing Practice of Nathaniel Donnett Christopher Blay Interdisciplinary cultural practitioner Nathaniel Donnett has a keen sense of place. Growing up in Houston’s Third Ward neighborhood, his practice evolved from the perspective of an artist uniquely aware of how his focus on the world outside his window could shape and contextualize the narratives that emerge from staying put. For example, in his project What’s The New News (2011–19), a seamless blend of conceptual art, social practice, reportage, cinema verité, and art in public spaces, Donnett collaborated with Third Ward residents who gave voice and language to their area through newspapers and newspaper racks placed in businesses and historical locations. The project examines the Third Ward as it evolves (or devolves) through an epoch of gentrification and how its artists, writers, business owners, and institutions respond to that change and control their own narratives within their sense of place in Houston and the city’s history. Donnett’s varied yet consistent practice is instantly recognizable as his own, resisting the canonical, neatly outlined rows and sections that visual art structures prescribe. He pointedly pushes back about what specific lens his work could be viewed through and instead insists on forging an individual path encompassing the multiplicities that inform his vision, all the while honoring the dense layers of Black life, and life itself, right under our noses.
Perhaps this is a Houstonian characteristic born in response to coastal states’ condescending views of Texas and the South, a debate that spans the collective consciousness of politics, art, and hip hop. Maybe Houston artists and cultural producers, stepping out of those conversations, tell stories that are uniquely Houstonian or, at the very least, stories that have a patina of the Bayou City. But I suspect it is something else. Donnett can whittle away at a thing until all that remains is its honesty and truth. It is only with an artist’s observing eyes, opened long enough to where they are, that these observations, reflections, and responses can be truly illuminated. I see this in the works of artists such as Jay-Z, Killer Mike, and William Kentridge—a truth in art that can only be manifested through the lived experience of taking in life from one’s own very specific part of our world. Donnett’s Hairline Fracture Series (2014), for example, infuses thick Black hair into the lines, boards, and bricks of boarded-up buildings like the one at the intersection of Rosalie Street and Dowling Street (which was renamed Emancipation Avenue, removing the name of the Confederate officer it memorialized, back in 2017). This snarky construction created literal lines of hair along the fractures of buildings, illustrating the nuances of how Donnett views history and time through materials. His use of reclaimed detritus, mundane utilitarian objects, and fragments is a poetic conceptual treatise on the inherent histories of materials. Monolith Transmitter Starlight Station (2022), for example, is made from reclaimed school desks that could be seen as physically imbued with the dreams of all the students who ever sat at them. Donnett’s material practice also compresses space and time. His corporeal and terrestrial observations are often paralleled by celestial and cosmic connections. Monolith Transmitter looks to both the microcosmic and the expanse of the universe, connecting Black bodies to the vastness of space, untethered from monochromatic tellings of our histories. A through line emerges between works like Seikseulb (2014)—blue skies spelled backward—and his current project Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Dark Imaginarence (2023), which explores the story of Ed Dwight, an African American test pilot. Dwight narrowly missed the opportunity to be the first Black astronaut to enter outer space because then, and mostly now as well, the only dark matter in space is reserved for what nature created in the in-betweens of the visible universe. Elsewhere in Donnett’s work, the ominous undertones in sculptures such as I looked over Jordan and what did I see; a band of angels coming after me (2017–19) could be viewed through the gospel hymn from which the title is derived, suggesting a literal reading of the work. For Black folks, however, the title leans toward a darker meaning. Angels in white coming after Black people do not naturally suggest a heavenly beckoning. This duality and layering in Donnett’s sculptures, installations, and conceptual works fuel a different kind of engine as we navigate his practice. Race, culture, and destiny are lodestones that guide us through the artist’s structures and ideas. In Age ain’t nothin’ but a number — poverty rate by age 6 – 17 years of age (2022), Donnett weaves a cosmic suture that binds with a fine surgical filament, pulling together the disparate fabrics of Black life and culture. Backpacks, zippers, and paper operate on the real numbers that affect the real lives of real people. There is no line of demarcation between art and Donnett’s daily existence.
Donnett’s practice does not neatly fit into speculative futures or Afrofuturism, yet something that reimagines futures where Black bodies exist and thrive in places and times we create ourselves seeps out of the objects and ideas he entertains. Signals from the Doorway (2021), with its Spiral Jetty-esque form, feels celestial and spiritual in a distant future kind of way. When I think about signals, both sending and receiving, I begin to speculate about our future, how we might get there, and how we can thrive long enough to get there. The sky is a sea of darkness when there is no sun to light the way (2021) connects to the dark passages and spaces that our ancestors navigated by the stars. There is something that reaches across vast expanses toward unseen futures that links Donnett’s work to something somewhere beyond here.
Signals from the Doorway Cotton gloves, book, gold chain, locket, led lights Dimensions variable 2021
For an artist whose practice is deeply rooted in the here and now, Donnett works with a liberated sensibility that is both visionary and obvious. Of course, his work defies standardized ideologies and of course he revels in it. Who is an artist if not a boundary encroacher or a relentless inquisitor? With Nathaniel Donnett, the living is the thing— with all its immutability, contradictions, and ever-expanding presence.
Title: Staring at infinity through the corners of asymmetry Medium: reclaimed wood, led light, fabric, nails, house paint, drywall earring studs, glass, aluminum foil Size: 96” x 166” x 132” Year: 2023
Title: Staring at infinity through the corners of asymmetry Medium: reclaimed wood, led light, fabric, nails, house paint, drywall earring studs, glass, aluminum foil Size: 96” x 166” x 132” Year: 2023
Title: Staring at infinity through the corners of asymmetry Medium: reclaimed wood, led light, fabric, nails, house paint, drywall earring studs, glass, aluminum foil Size: 96” x 166” x 132” Year: 2023
Title: Staring at infinity through the corners of asymmetry Medium: reclaimed wood, led light, fabric, nails, house paint, drywall earring studs, glass, aluminum foil Size: 96” x 166” x 132” Year: 2023
Title: Staring at infinity through the corners of asymmetry (interior) Medium: reclaimed wood, led light, fabric, nails, house paint, drywall earring studs, glass, aluminum foil Size: 96” x 166” x 132” Year: 2023
Title: Raindrop Medium: clear backpack, school desk, asphalt Size: 14” x 25” x 19” Year: 2023
Title: Ascension Medium: digital photos, paper, ink, graphite, plastic bags backpacks, duct tape Size: 27” x 44” Year: 2023
Title: Freeman’s Portal Medium: backpacks, plastic trash bag digital photo, fabric, duct tape Size: 25” x 36. 5” Year: 2022
Title: reconfigurspatialicious Medium: paper bags, duct tape, ink, pencil, China marker paper, plastic trash bags, shoelace, aerosol paint tambourine jingle Size: 44” x 72” Year: 2021
Title: Tambourine Medium: duct tape, plastic trash bags tambourine jingles cotton gloves, record albums tarp Size: 113” x 98” x 3” Year: 2020 – 2021
Title: Tambourine (detail) Medium: duct tape, plastic trash bags tambourine jingles cotton gloves, record albums tarp Size: 113” x 98” x 3” Year: 2020 – 2021
Title: Constellations Medium: mixed media, video, tv monitor, frames Size: dimensions variable Year: 2023
Title: Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez Medium: backpack zippers backpacks Size: 17” x 19” Year: 2023
Title: Exit Strategy Medium: paper, Chinese marker, fabric ink, aerosol paint, folders, oil stick Size: 14” x 16” Year: 2022
Title: Habitual Behaviors Medium: found sign, folders paper, ink Size: 18” x 19” Year: 2023
Title: SLAB Mission: Medium: digital copy on paper Size: 11” x 17” Year: 2023
Title: Untitled Medium: found sign, folders paper, ink Size: 18” x 19” Year: 2023
Title: Habitual Behaviors Medium: Looking through the wire Size: 16” x 17” Year: 2023
Title: Signals of Soulintellengency; AACVE Medium: Bass drum, charcoal, radio/ tv antennas, light source battery, sound from field recordings Size: 46” x 21” x 18” Year: 2023
Title: Earth Tone 1, Earth Tone 2 Medium: digital print on paper, dirt Size: 9” x 11” Year: 2023
Title: Nebula Medium: backpacks, duct tape, shoelace, tambourine jingle, ink, Chinese marker, aerosol paint, house paint, acrylic paint, plastic trash bags, graphite, fabric, thread, paper Size: 121” x 157” Year: 2023
Title: Cosmic Fractal Systems Medium: video Size: 4 min: 36 sec Year: 2021
Title: Life is a long introduction Medium: photograph Size: 17” x 17” Year: 2023
Title: Life Transmissions Medium: plastic trash bags, oil stick, graphite, paper Ink, wood, radio/tv antenna, aluminum foil Size: 60in x 66in Year: 2023
Title: Entendre, Entendre Medium: reclaimed speakers, aluminum foil, books Size: 30.5” x 38” Year: 2023
Title: Entendre, Entendre Medium: reclaimed speakers, aluminum foil, books Size: 30.5” x 38” Year: 2023
Title: I see myself where I am not; I discover my absence from where I am Medium: mirrors, video, reclaimed wood Size: dimensions variable Year: 2023
Title: Broken Wing; LG.R.E.M. Medium: white gloves, gold chains Size: 31” x 53” Year: 2023
Title: From Nothing to No Thang’ Medium: duct tape, plastic trash bags, digital prints on paper, ink, gold chains keyboard, coins, books Size: 82” x 72” x 3” Year: 2022
Title: From Nothing to No Thang’ (details) Medium: duct tape, plastic trash bags, digital prints on paper, ink, gold chains keyboard, coins, books Size: 82” x 72” x 3” Year: 2022
Title: Call Of the Void Medium: a/c unit, speaker, amplifier, backboard plastic tarp, cymbal, pot, microphone, wires water, soundSize: dimensions variableYear: 2023
Title: Meteor: 1 Medium: ink, paper Size: 16” x 19” Year: 2021
Title: Umbra Medium: backpacks, plastic trash bags, tambourine jingles Size: 140” x 157.5” Year: 2023
Title: Something Else Happened Medium: back packs, house and aerosol paint, thread, fabric, zipper Size: 57” x 61” Year: 2023
Title: Spatial Coding Antenna Medium: wood Size: 44.5” x 48” x 54” Year: 2023
Title: Crater Medium: milk crates duct tape, plastic, records Size: 31.5” x 13” x 13” Year: 2023
Title: Crater Medium: milk crates, duct tape, plastic, records Size: 31.5” x 13” x 13” Year: 2023
Title: Steal away, still a way, steel weight Medium: duct tape, plastic trash bags, tambourine jingles records, paper, ink, fabric Size: 103” x 77” Year: 2023
Nathaniel Donnett’s (b. Houston, TX) interdisciplinary practice shapes and holds open spaces of phenomenological and metaphysical significance. Utilizing sourced and reclaimed objects, Donnett approaches ideas of materiality through concepts of Blackness, everyday aesthetic theory, and encoding strategies. Donnett received his BA in Fine Arts from Texas Southern University and his MFA from Yale University School of Art. He is a recipient of the 2024 American Academy of Rome Affiliated Fellowship, a 2022 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Dean’s Critical Practice Research Grant and Social Justice Initiative Grant, both from Yale (2020). His work has been exhibited at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK; The Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, Virginia; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX; The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; The American University Museum, Washington, D.C.; The University Museum, Houston, TX; The Kemper Contemporary Arts Museum, Kansas City, MO; Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver, CO Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and The New Museum, New York, NY. Major support for this exhibition is provided by the Guggenheim Foundation and the Teiger Foundation, with additional support from Houston Endowment, The Office of the Provost at Texas Southern University, Houston Arts Alliance, and anonymous patrons. Additional support from Highland Heights Elementary School, Sunnyside Community Center, Fifth Ward Multi - Service Center, and Project Row Houses. Special thanks goes to Tyres Donnett, Djenaba Donnett, william cordova, Tomago Collins Christopher Blay, Fulcrum company, and EBD contracting. Photos courtesy of Rick Wells