A few years ago, in my former neighborhood in Queens, I passed an ornamental column amid the sidewalk trash. Regret prompted me to backtrack and haul the plaster orphan home. It’s since moved with me to Chicago, where, bearing a pothos, it receives many compliments.
While Jones was cooped indoors last year, she began thinking about ideologies of whiteness that are baked into everyday domestic life. She bought ornamental columns from local sellers on Craigslist and Facebook, made of cheap materials such as plastic, wood, plaster, or metal. The growing stockpile of columns is the centerpiece of Jones’s show “We forgot the moon while holding up the sun” at Bridgeport’s 062 gallery in the Zhou B Art Center. The resulting piece, Orders of Empire, features dozens of columns spilling from a corner to evoke an ancient ruin. The exhibition, which also includes photography, works to untangle the pervasive legacies of white supremacy that haunt in plain sight; to show that a column is not just a column.
Jones is aware that being a white woman has allowed her to do this work—so far, no one has called the police on her. Her race is one of the reasons I’d argue that she should be doing this work: white artists don’t feel the expectations that many artists of color do to make work about race, and infrequently examine whiteness without speaking for nonwhite communities.
Through 7/23: by appointment. 062 Gallery, Zhou B Art Center, 1029 W. 35th, 062official.com
