Never Free to Rest
Rashaun Rucker
On View: May 27 - July 23, 2022 I Front Gallery
Opening Reception: 6-8 PM, Friday, May 27, 2022 I ALH Sculpture Garden
Artist Talk: 2:00 - 4:00 PM, Saturday, May 28, 2022 I Front Gallery
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present, Never Free to Rest, a multidisciplinary exhibition of work by Detroit-based artist Rashaun Rucker in the Front Gallery. Never Free to Rest features a body of work that compares the life and origins of a commonly found bird in cities around the world known as the Rock Pigeon, to the stereotypes and myths of the constructed identities of Black men in the United States of America.
Although pigeons have a long history with humans, it’s nearly impossible to identify their original habitat. Europeans brought the pigeons to North America in the 1600s, around the same time as the inception of the transatlantic slave trade in the United States. Displaced from their natural environment, and without a migration gene to guide them, the birds adapt to their circumstances and the environments imposed upon them. Within months, their location is permanently imprinted in their minds as being home. Much like the pigeons, Black people were taken from their place of foundation and assigned a station in society within the colonized Western Hemisphere.