New Media Series: Rodney McMillian

Rodney McMillian's art examines the socio-political dimensions of power associated with cultural, racial, and economic issues. In his multifaceted body of work, McMillian creates scenes that are complex and impure forums, opening the door for dialog by twisting and probing accepted or standardized histories and social frameworks. New Media Series: Rodney McMillian presents a recent work by the Los Angeles based artist, A Migration Tale, 2014-15.

A Migration Tale features a dominant character: a masked "super hero" or time traveler from the future who journeys from South Carolina to Harlem, New York. Allusions to science fiction appear throughout McMillian's work, offering both an alternative approach to examine modern social structures as well as exploring history, in a non-linear form. This present-day depiction of the Great Migration raises many questions regarding the role of the "other" in our society and considers the many ways that location, landscape, and material objects continue to construct and inform our understandings of racial and class disparity.

The narrative arch of A Migration Tale leads the viewer to confront their own understandings of socio-economic and racial circumstances, telling a story that aims to embrace the complexities and ambiguities of contemporary social realities through artistic explorations.

Exhibition overview from museum website