![]() ![]() The Building 5 gallery features Brava!, Hill’s monumental, minimalistic kinetic sculpture. Installation view, EJ Hill: Brake Run Helix, Building 5, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, EJ Hill with Skyline Attractions, Brava!, 2022, weld-free steel roller coaster, enamel spray paint, wood, and velvet. These sculptures are made from reused and found materials, including pre-made neon signs and scrap wood from MASS MoCA’s woodshop, adding an eco-friendly and sustainable element to the exhibition. The first gallery showcases a series of sculptures inspired by amusement park forms, including a two-story pillar that takes the idea of a roller coaster’s vertical drop to the extreme. Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are greeted with the sweet aroma of fresh-cut wood. Through Brake Run Helix, Hill reclaims these communal places of shared pleasure as a Black queer person, offering viewers the pursuit of joy as a universal quest. Board of Education case, amusement parks were officially desegregated, but new restrictions, such as high admission fees, continued to limit access for those without the financial means to enter the park. became sites of discrimination throughout Jim Crow-era desegregation efforts as Black Americans were systematically denied access to these leisure sites. Roller coasters originated in Russia in the early 1700s as amusements for nobility, eventually becoming permanent public attractions for a broader audience in Europe and the United States. The exhibition title, Brake Run Helix, refers to two elements of roller coaster design, but Hill’s Brava! does not contain either of these mechanisms, liberating viewers from external forces that subject the body to societal and environmental structures. Hill’s obsession with roller coasters, which he views as a symbol of joy and social equity, is a recurring motif in his performance art, photography, painting, and sculpture. The exhibition also features Brava!, a monumental kinetic sculpture and rideable installation that embodies the form and function of roller coasters. Hill’s groundbreaking artistic vision invites visitors to a thought-provoking and visually stunning experience that challenges systemic exclusion and transcends the traditional boundaries of contemporary art.īrake Run Helix presents a collection of Hill’s sculptures, paintings, and works on paper that explores the conflicting emotions of fear and joy, and critiques the societal structures that have historically denied Black, working-class, and queer communities access to leisure and pleasure. Installation view, EJ Hill: Brake Run Helix, Building 5, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, EJ Hill with Skyline Attractions, Brava!, 2022, weld-free steel roller coaster, enamel spray paint, wood, and velvet.Ĭurated by Alexandra Foradas Hill’s latest exhibition at MASS MoCA, Brake Run Helix, is a tour-de-force of art, performance, and emotional exploration. ![]()
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