Artist Talk: Cauleen Smith

Wed. Feb. 16, 2022 | 12:00 p.m. CT
(Note our new day/time for these Curated Conversations!)
FREE to attend; registration required.

Join Cauleen Smith and Blanton curator Veronica Roberts for a discussion on her multimedia practice and work, currently on view in Assembly: New Acquisitions by Contemporary Black Artists.

Los Angeles-based artist Cauleen Smith’s flashing neon sculpture Light Up Your Life (For Sandra Bland) alternates between “I will light you up,” the words shouted to Sandra Bland by a Texas State Trooper, and “I will light up your life,” lyrics from the 1970s hit famously sung by Debby Boone and later Whitney Houston. About the artwork, Smith said: “I wanted to play with this threat, ‘I will light you up,’ by finding a response that neutralized it… And so, this flashing neon is a dance off, a sing-a-thon, a battle, a protest, a memento mori that collectivizes Sandra Bland’s resistance, reclaims her sovereignty, and reifies the ways in which Black culture is inextricably woven into national identities and cultures.” 

Feature Image Caption: Installation view of Cauleen Smith, Light Up Your Life (For Sandra Bland), 2019, neon, plexiglass, faceted hematite, and aluminum chain, overall: 1063/4 × 68 × 5in. Commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Purchase through the generosity of an anonymous donor, 2020