OCTOBER 2024
LaKela Brown
Portrait by Kyle Knodell
Curator contributor Alex May speaks with artist LaKela Brown about her work, career, and new exhibition, From Scratch: Seeding Adornment, currently at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
LaKela Brown received a BFA in 2005 from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Her sculptural relief works evoke ancient art forms such as hieroglyphic wall carvings or cuneiform relief tablets, with imagery that references 1990s hip-hop culture. Door-knocker hoop earrings are posed as celebratory symbols of female empowerment and maturity; embedded in other works are rope chain necklaces, gold-capped teeth, and chicken heads. Brown's pieces are presented as artifacts from another era that have been discovered and placed on display for an examination that is as much anthropological as aesthetic. Plaster relief slabs are installed alongside their bas-relief counterparts, and in some instances three-dimensional cast sculptures are placed alongside their molds. By hearkening back to ancient Greco-Roman methods of mark making, Brown presents a meditation on how objects are historicized, represented, and abstracted in a museological context.
Alex May: What were your first memories around art? Was there a moment when you knew you had to be an artist?
LaKela Brown: It’s almost too fairytale-like, but my mother was my very first art memory. Both of my parents were really creative. I have a memory when I was very small; I have no idea how old I was, but I had to be no more than three. I was hanging out with my mother in her bedroom, and I watched her draw a picture of a dog. I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t know that you could make an image with your hand, and I didn’t have a word for art, but I remember having a thought, “I want to be able to do that,” even though I didn’t know what “that” was.
AM: That’s when you were three, so fast-forward to today. You’re a practicing, living, breathing artist. How did you get to this point?
LB: In some ways, I have a traditional path. I did go to undergrad for art school at the College for Creative Studies [Detroit]. I was a fine art major. One thing I really appreciated about the program was that it was interdisciplinary. We had to learn painting, sculpture, printmaking. I really loved that we were required to do all of that.
Then I graduated, did artist residencies, and worked. I come from a working-class family, and I worked. My practice was always existing in and around my work schedule. Once I found myself in New York, kind of by accident, it put me in proximity to all these resources because New York is where the center of the industry is. The part of my practice that I was able to maintain was nurtured in this way that led to opportunities to exhibit my work and be seen. Then it just led to more opportunities. I think that’s very traditional. For most people, they’re working, they’re showing, they have a day job. They may already have gone to art school.
Now, twenty years later, I find myself having not gone to grad school. If I never go to grad school, I will always wonder, but now I’m kind of like, “Well, I’m doing the thing.”
AM: How did you go from having a multidisciplinary education to becoming a sculptor? Do you call yourself a sculptor? I know you also have some works on paper.
LB: Yeah. I want to do more with paper. I just happened to come in contact with this paper-making organization, Dieu Donné. They taught me how to make paper. I think it’s a good partner to the sculptural work, so I would love to do more of that.
I actually really love the sensual experience of painting, so I get it. I think that everybody wants to think they’re special, so I wanted to challenge myself to not lean into painting because it’s such a sweetheart. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be painting, obviously, but I wanted to challenge myself and lean into a sculptural practice. Then I find that you end up oriented that way. Because I turned my gaze that way, it seems like now my ideas tend to come out three-dimensionally. I’m saying I’m an artist first, but if pressed, I will identify as a sculptor. Not that I feel any sort of tension about it, but I hope that if I have painting ideas, that I would be open enough to let myself explore.
AM: Have there been any artists who’ve inspired you?
LB: Absolutely. When you look at my older work, you can definitely see that I was a disciple of all the artists. Once again, I think that’s pretty typical unless you’re one of those people who really come with a unique take. But in my early work, you can absolutely see very strongly Kiki Smith speaking through my work and Alison Saar, George Segal, Robert Gober, and even Matthew Barney in some of the props of his films. So, for sure, I have lots of influences. And then there are people who mentored me. My work doesn’t physically or visibly resemble their work, but their work and maybe their content are more influential.
Installation view, LaKela Brown, From Scratch: Seeding Adornment, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), June 28 — October 20, 2024
AM: Congratulations on your new exhibition, From Scratch: Seeding Adornment, currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). Can you describe the exhibition to our readers?
LB: Absolutely. Thank you, first of all. There are two coexisting bodies of work. When we talk about Seeding Adornment, “Seeding” refers to the first gallery, which is a work inspired by ethnobotany and is about how people use plants in culture. I learned about ethnobotany when I worked at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I learned about this sub-genre of study, about how plants become culturally relevant. So, I thought a bit about applying that to myself, which shows that work is conceived. That’s a newer body of work.
Then, in the second gallery is an older series that I’ve been working on for a while, which has to do with Adornment. Both come out of my experience as a kid growing up in the eighties and nineties in Detroit during the hip-hop era, but also having the Black American experience and having that shape my culinary palate. Obviously, it’s in a museum, and museums are to contextualize things for the visitors. There is an overarching theme of still life and cultural archives and artifacts. That is the overriding thing that unites the two bodies of work.
Installation view, LaKela Brown, From Scratch: Seeding Adornment, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), June 28 — October 20, 2024
AM: Can you talk a little bit more about ethnobotany? What objects did you choose to include in that section?
LB: This is my nod to modernism, or thinking about how they constructed their compositions and chose a couple of objects and then used those objects to form their compositions. I talked about ethnobotany, which is a study of cultural relevance, or how plants become culturally relevant. One of the primary ways that plants can become relevant to cultures is the culinary use of plants, and there are also medicinal or household uses, for example.
Then I think about myself as a Black American and all of the history about how people have moved around the country, and knowing the history of the great migration, African American people coming from the south. My grandmother and my mother are both excellent cooks. One of the dishes we always cooked when we had family gatherings was collard greens, stewed collard greens. We would always eat our collard greens with cornbread and often other side dishes like fried okra. Those are the primary plants that I used as my subjects. Taking those three objects and also thinking about my study in the art school of still life, I took those three plants and basically built a body of work off of those in the form of sculptural still-lifes, essentially.
LaKela Brown, Bouquet of Five Leaves with Corn and Okra, 2024, urethane resin, 25 x 16 1/2 x 7 inches
LaKela Brown, Of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, 2024, urethane resin, 32 x 22 x 11 inches
AM: You work a lot in plaster and resin.
LB: Yes, I think that my choice of materials is partially referencing the materials and processes of sculpture. So part of the reason I use so much plaster is because of its historic significance in terms of the materials and processes of sculpture.
I get that question a lot because people are like, "Why are you using plaster?" Part of it was because it was accessible and affordable, but then I also started to realize the historic significance of plaster and casting. Then I had a realization that the resin could resemble the plaster but be versatile and allow me to do more things, more thin casting, especially with the casting of the delicate collard green leaves. It enables me to bend and stretch, sort of distort them, and layer them in a way you can't do with plaster because it's simply too fragile to cast that thinly.
AM: Do you have a favorite work or two in the exhibition? And if so, can you describe them?
LB: My grandmother, Evelyn Helen Brown, is our family's cook. I mentioned that my mother was a good cook, and her cooking is very much modeled after her mother, Evelyn. My grandmother's cooking very much shaped my palate. The first time I ever had collard greens must have been when my grandmother cooked them for the family. Also, she worked professionally as a cook for almost 40 years. So even though there was a very intentional removal of the figure from my work, it felt like a necessary tribute to have a cast of my grandmother's hands in the show.
I didn't premeditate to have her hands cast for this show, but after I made this work it occurred to me that this person is why these objects found their way as subjects in my work. It just made sense to me.
LaKela Brown, My Grandmother’s Hands, 2024, urethane resin, 9 x 9 1/2 x 2 inches
LaKela Brown, Three Pearl Strands: Banana Skirt Series, 2024, plaster, 29 x 21 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches
LB: The Josephine Baker banana skirt piece is also notable to me because of the way that it became sort of a bridge for the two [different bodies of work]. After I made this work, I wasn't sure how it would fit into the show, but then I realized that it kind of served as a bridge, or I hoped it would. It's partly a bridge because it has the plant matter, but it has the adornment part as well, with three cast strings of pearl features and the bananas that are protruding from the surface. I think it's also maybe one of the boldest and certainly strangest things I've ever made, so I appreciate it.
AM: I can see the bridge between the Adornment and the ethnobotany. Didn’t you tell me that when Josephine Baker was living in France, she had to grow her own collard greens?
LB: Absolutely. There's a picture of her when she had gone to Paris to perform; she couldn't find collard greens anywhere. She is a Black American, so that would be a staple dish for her, so she grew her own collard greens. That’s also how she got into my mind and how this work sort of came through me. Because it was like, “Okay, so you're sort of affirming that cultural need.”
AM: Is it significant for you that you're having your first solo show in Detroit, back in your hometown?
LB: It’s very significant for me. It was not planned. I did not have some grand scheme. I was very fortunate to be offered this opportunity, and it really is a dream come true. So many artists work their whole lives, and they’re not given opportunities like this. Also, it feels like a homecoming to be able to have it at MOCAD.
Of course, the Detroit Institute of Arts formed my idea of what a museum could be, so I was spoiled to have this resource. I was there at the beginning of MOCAD. So, when I was maybe a sophomore or a junior, there was this idea about this museum in this kind of warehouse building and what it could be and what this space could show. Then, when I was maybe 19, Nari Ward came, and he did a studio visit, and we got to hang out with him. He was such a nice person and an amazing artist, and I was glad to see him living and working.
He decided that he was going to make this Japanese tea house. He called over to the art school to see if any little art babies would want to come, and I got to be one of the students who worked [on the project]. He had built this structure, the structure of the Japanese Tea Garden House. We were ripping and attaching these ceiling tiles as the facade of this thing, so I got to be, in a little way, a part of the very first exhibition of MOCAD. I got to meet and watch Nari Ward work on this piece that became a part of the inaugural exhibition. In that way, it feels very full circle as well to be showing my work there. A lot of people would hope for an opportunity like that, but it's really awesome to actually receive this opportunity.
AM: It was well deserved. What's next for you?
LB: I already have ideas brewing that are branching off from these works. I think I found something that feels really generative to me, and I think that it feels very much like it’s still growing. In terms of creativity, I have more ways that this idea can be expanded… Then, in terms of actual showing work and stuff, I am in a group show at Marianne Boesky, Material World. That's been interesting.
One thing I like about group shows is that it teaches you something new about your work, or at least I feel that way because it’s a new context, so that's happening. Then I’m in a couple other group shows. Alexander Gray, a space in Upstate New York, and the most exciting thing is that I'm in a group show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art curated by Akili Tommasino. The overarching theme of the show is about black artists who use Egyptian imagery in their work. That’ll be, again, another group show that provides a new context for my work. The show is opening on November 12th.
AM: Are you included because you use these plaster reliefs, or do you use Egyptian imagery?
LB: I use casting of Nefertiti and King Tut pendants. There’s a tiny work in the MOCAD show. It's sprinkled throughout my work. The work that's in the [Met] show is an older work. It's actually my very first museum acquisition, from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. It’s on loan from them to the Met, and it has some King Tut heads and tiny impressions of Nefertiti heads. That's always been sprinkled throughout my work.
Installation view, LaKela Brown, From Scratch: Seeding Adornment, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), June 28 — October 20, 2024
LaKela Brown
From Scratch: Seeding Adornment
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
June 28 — October 20, 2024