Baggage Claims

Baggage Claims presents the work of an international group of eighteen artists who explore the impact of the vast scale of commerce and immigration worldwide on contemporary life. Using suitcases, trunks, and crates to create works of art, these artists express provocative ideas about the mobility of global culture. These ideas often refer to the humanitarian, economic and political concerns of populations who are compelled to flee conflicts and hardship or to seek opportunities far from home.

On an intimate level, baggage transports and holds personal belongings, and by implication is a rich metaphor for individual and family histories. The term baggage also carries significant psychological meaning, referring to the burdens or blessings of those things in life that cannot be left behind. Baggage Claims is the first exhibition to present a new body of work by contemporary artists who are examining these timely themes.

The exhibition features work by artists Richard Artschwager, Mieke Bal & Shahram Entekhabi, Taysir Batniji, Walead Beshty, Yoan Capote’s, Abel Carranza, Hussein Chalayan, André Leon Gray, Subodh Gupta, Mohamad Hafez, Dan Halter, Avery McQuaid Nelson Lawrence, Joel Ross, Clarissa Tossin, Kathleen Vance, Yin Xiuzhen, and Andrea Zittel.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website