JACOLBY SATTERWHITE
b. 1986, Columbia, SC, USA
Jacolby Satterwhite is celebrated for a conceptual practice addressing crucial themes of labor, consumption, carnality and fantasy through immersive installation, virtual reality and digital media. He uses a range of software to produce intricately detailed animations and live action film of real and imagined worlds populated by the avatars of artists and friends. These animations serve as the stage on which the artist synthesizes the multiple disciplines that encompass his practice, namely illustration, performance, painting, sculpture, photography and writing. Satterwhite draws from an extensive set of references, guided by queer theory, modernism and video game language to challenge conventions of Western art through a personal and political lens. An equally significant influence is that of his late mother, Patricia Satterwhite, whose ethereal vocals and diagrams for visionary household products serve as the source material within a decidedly complex structure of memory and mythology.
Jacolby Satterwhite was born in 1986 in Columbia, South Carolina. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Satterwhite’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions and festivals internationally, including most recently at the FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (2022); Miller Institute for Contemporary Art, PA (2021); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2021); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2021); Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia (2019); Pioneer Works, New York (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); Public Art Fund, New York (2017); San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco (2017); and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2017). He was awarded the United States Artist Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellowship in 2016. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Satterwhite has collaborated with several musicians, including Solange Knowles in 2019 on her visual album, “When I Get Home,” and Perfume Genus in 2022 on his album, “Ugly Season.” He was awarded a public art commission in collaboration with the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Public Art Fund to inaugurate Lincoln Center’s new David Geffen Hall, debuting in October 2022 in New York.
Group show at a major institution
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and Whitney Museum of American Art, Rockbund Art Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Haus der Kunst, Brooklyn Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), MCA Chicago
Collected by a major institution
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
C-Print, Edition of 2 + 1AP 153 × 203 cm
C-Print, Edition of 2 + 1AP 135 × 203 cm
C-Print 76 × 135 cm
C-Print, Edition of 2 + 1AP 153 × 203 cm
MOVING IMAGE / VIDEO LINKS
Reifying Desire 5
Jacolby Satterwhite Dances with His Self | "New York Close Up" | Art21
NEWS AND EXHIBITIONS
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART FALL 2023
GREAT HALL COMMISSION
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, New York
October 2 – November 26, 2023
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE AT JULIA STOSCHEK FOUNDATION
AT DAWN
APRIL 27 - DECEMBER 4, 2022
The group exhibition at dawn draws connections between techniques of image production and the social and political work that goes into imagining alternatives to what the late Cuban American thinker José Esteban Muñoz called our “poisonous and insolvent” present.
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE IN FRONT TRIENNIAL 2022
OH, GODS OF DUST AND RAINBOWS
JULY 16 – OCTOBER 2, 2022
Launched in 2018, FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art is a contemporary art exhibition across Northeast Ohio comprised of artist commissions, performances, films, and public programs that takes place across Cleveland, Akron, and Oberlin every three years.
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE 2022
OH, GODS OF DUST AND RAINBOWS
JULY 13 – JULY 17, 2022
Lundgren Gallery proudly presents Jacolby Satterwhite at the first edition of CAN Contemporary art fair in Ibiza, Spain.
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE STUDIO MUSEUM ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE 2020–21
(NEVER) AS I WAS
NOVEMBER 18, 2021 – FEBRUARY 27, 2022
(Never) As I Was marks the third year of the multiyear partnership between The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Modern Art, and MoMA PS1, and features new work by the 2020–21 Artist-in-Residence
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE AT MILLER INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
SPIRITS ROAMING ON THE EARTH
AUGUST 14 – DECEMBER 5, 2021
Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University will present the first major monographic survey of Jacolby Satterwhite’s work. Curated by Elizabeth Chodos, Spirits Roaming on the Earth traces ten years of the artist’s panoramic oeuvre.
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE IN THE ATHENS BIENNIAL 2021
AB7: ECLIPSE
SEPTEMBER 24, 2021
The ΑΒ7: ECLIPSE inhabits three neighbouring landmark buildings of the historic centre of Athens: the Former Department Store Fokas, the Former Santaroza Courthouse in Justice Square, and Schliemann-Mella Hall. These closely knit emblematic ghost buildings reflect various aspects and eras of the historical, cultural and architectural Athenian urban landscape.
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE AT THE HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN
BIRDS IN PARADISE
MAY 14, 2021
Jacolby Satterwhite uses digital animation to construct epic imagined worlds inspired by video games, Afrofuturism, and queer theory. Birds in Paradise is set primarily in a vast coliseum over which a nude Black man wearing a cowboy hat soars on a winged metallic horse.
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE IN THE GWANGJU BIENNALE
THE 13TH GWANGJU BIENNALE
MAY 9, 2021
Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning sets out to examine the spectrum of the extended mind through artistic and theoretical means. Directed by Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala, the 13th Gwangju Biennale (1 April–9 May, 2021) will feature a dynamic program encompassing an exhibition with a performance program.
JACOLBY SATTERWHITE AT THE MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART
SPECULATIVE BODIES
JANUARY 26, 2019 - MARCH 15, 2020
Jacolby Satterwhite is included in the group exhibition Speculative Bodies at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Jacolby Satterwhite had his 2nd solo “Island of Treasure2 at Mallorca Landings November-December 2013. Inclusion in the Whitney Biennial 2014.
Two man booth at Vienna Art Fair 24 – 27 september 2015, together with Luis Gispert and Stefan Lundgren Gallery / Mallorca Landings Residency.
Radical Presence ; Yerba buena center
When the stars begin to fall: ICA Boston
Serralves Museum, Under the Clouds , Porta, portugal June-September, 2015
Seattle Art Museum: Disguise JUN 18 – SEP 7 2015
Albright Knox Museum : Screen Play: Life in An Animated World June 20–September 13, 2015
America Is Hard to See : Whitney Museum of American Art
Dallas Art Museum; Concentrations 59: Mirror Stage—Visualizing the Self After the Internet April 10, 2015 to December 6, 2016
Queer Fantasy : OH-WOW Gallery July 11 – AUG 15, 2015
Weird Science, Marianne Boeskey Gallery July 9 – August 7, 2015
TBA multiple screenings at the New Museum in september 2015