“Viviane Sassen: Pikin Slee”

Straddling the realms of art and fashion, Kenya–raised Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen has spent much of her career in Africa, abstracting its natural splendor with her signature use of shadow play and color fields. For the works in this solo exhibition, Sassen’s lens traveled across the Atlantic to Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America, expanding her scope to the global African diaspora. Shot mostly in black and white, this body of work from 2013 documents the community and jungle flora of Pikin Slee, the second-largest village along the Upper Suriname River.

previews May 2014

“Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love”

An African American designer based in Paris in the 1980s, Patrick Kelly was a fashion-world anomaly whose irreverent looks boldly addressed issues of race, sexuality, and class. Now, a generation after Kelly’s untimely death from aids in 1990, his work as jovial provocateur is considered in full in this capacious survey. Presenting more than eighty ensembles, the exhibition highlights the designer’s signature interweaving of autobiography, racial stereotypes,and cliché notions of luxury and taste, which Kelly frequently both celebrated and satirized. Photography by the daring