Body:Politic

Banner Image: 'Clean Lines,' acrylic, Stephanie Gandy. Image courtesy of Myah Goff.

◼︎ ◼︎ ◼︎ ◼︎ ◼︎ 

A new cultural arts center opened this July on Nicollet Mall, giving artists of color a place to show their work, connect with buyers and build careers from their creativity. 

The Roho Collective Gallery & Cultural Arts Center sits at 520 Nicollet Ave., right across from a light rail stop in downtown Minneapolis.

If you look up toward the sky, you’ll see glass and steel towers rising above the streets. In front of you, people stream out of apartment lobbies, coffee in hand, and head toward offices where the workday has already begun. 

But along the same block, another reality comes into view. 

“A lot of people that live in these high rises come down to go to their executive jobs and they step over a lot of brown people,” said Minnesota-based visual artist Christopheraaron Deanes. 

Black and brown residents rest on benches along Nicollet Ave. Some are navigating homelessness, addiction or mental health challenges. For some, this may be the version of Black life they encounter most often: on their walk to work, on their way home or on the television.

“They go up to their houses and turn on Fox 9, and they see us the same way they see us in the street,” Deanes said. “The perception is skewed.”

That’s part of what he and his wife, Cara Deanes, are trying to change. 

 

Image: Detail of street photography by Stephanie Morris at Roho Collective Gallery & Cultural Arts Center. Image courtesy of Myah Goff.

Since opening Roho, the couple comes to work with the opportunity to put another image of Black life in front of people.

“We’re trying to build Black excellence, not just in the arts but in this community,” Deanes said. “We’re more than just that one singular story of incarceration, homelessness and mental health.” 

Even when the gallery is closed, people seem to notice that intention. When I walked past on a recent Friday evening, two older Black men walked past the dark storefront. One stopped, pressed his face against the glass and squinted into the dim interior. 

“Oh, it looks like an art space!” he called out with surprise. 

It was a small moment but it captured what the Roho collective is trying to create. A space where Black art doesn’t feel tucked away or out of reach, but simply part of the neighborhood. Something you can stumble upon on your way home.

Inside, Roho’s marketplace brings together local and international artists. Paintings by Christopheraaron Deanes hang alongside works from Portland painter Elisa Gusdal, Rondo native Leeta Douglas, and Minneapolis artists Ron Brown and Christopher E. Harrison. 

 

Image: 'Red', acrylic, Ron Brown at Roho Collective Gallery & Cultural Arts Center. Image courtesy of Myah Goff.

 

You’ll also find street photography by Stephanie Morris, hand-crafted jewelry, wellness products, and art brought in from across Africa. 

“It's really powerful to bring together Black artists and help them elevate with connections, economic opportunity and to just get their work seen,” said local textile artist Elizabeth Robinson, who houses Artisan International at the center. Robinson brings hand-woven baskets, wall decor and sculptures from Ghana, Uganda, Jamaica and Burkina Faso. 

“There are many hours that go into this work and there are generations of tradition and knowledge that’s been passed down,” Robinson said. “I want people to find unique items that they will cherish in their homes.” 

Roho’s inaugural group exhibit in the new space, “Body:Politic - Once Upon These Times,” features work from more than 30 Black artists responding to the current political climate. The title plays with the phrase “once upon a time,” an opening that places a story safely in the past. But these artists aren’t looking back at a moment that has already ended. They’re exploring one that is still unfolding around them. 

 

Image: Installation view of 'The Last Look' by Ariane Jackson at Roho Collective Gallery & Cultural Arts Center. Image courtesy of Myah Goff.

 

One of the works centers on Renee Nicole Good, the South Minneapolis poet who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in January. In Ariane Jackson’s painting, titled “The Last Look,” Good looks at herself through the rearview mirror. The top half of her face is washed in light blue and surrounded by maroon. In a companion piece titled “Instinct to Help,” her hand reaches into a field of red. 

There’s something very intimate about seeing only Good’s eyes. It’s a familiar glance anyone might give themselves in the mirror. Really, the eyes could belong to anyone. They could be mine, or yours. 

The body takes on different meanings throughout the gallery. In Stephanie Gandy’s “Clean Lines,” a female figure stands with her arms crossed. Her body is both Black and white but divided by a blue line running straight down the center. 

Two works by Christopheraaron Deanes look at another kind of distance. In one, three Black women stand near one another but look in different directions, occupying the same space without connecting. In another, two Black men stand across from each other, but one is absorbed in his phone. 

In Delsita Day’s “The Price of Cotton,” the body carries the history of slavery. A Black girl stands in a cotton field wearing a torn white dress, her back marked with whiplash scars that the artist has rendered in gold. The gold doesn’t erase the violence of slavery but reclaims the body through endurance. 

 

Image: The Price of Cotton by Delsita Day at Roho Collective Gallery & Cultural Arts Center. Image courtesy of Myah Goff.

 

In Loretta Day’s “Jazz,” she brings together a constellation of Black jazz musicians in a monochromatic portrait collage. The piece features Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, among others. 

Meanwhile, Jordan Q. Johnson’s “Dreaming” and “How Do I Hold Space?” turns toward self-care as an act of resistance. In a culture that often views Black bodies as either a site of labor, struggle or political spectacle, Johnson paints a Black woman resting in a bath tub and in her bedroom. 

While the works vary widely in subject and style, they offer many versions of Black life in America. The show rejects the comfortable distance of historical hindsight. Political violence is unfolding in real time, but it exists alongside Black joy, creativity, entrepreneurship, rest and possibility.◼︎ 

“Body:Politic - Once Upon These Times” will be on display at the Roho Collective Gallery & Cultural Arts Center until Sept. 27. The exhibit is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, with extended hours until 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The gallery is located at 520 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis. For updates, follow Roho Collective on IG here.