Poetry Is Not a Luxury
Curated by Maymanah Farhat
Poetry Is Not a Luxury—a powerful exhibition featuring 26 book artists hailing from Vermont to South Korea—is titled after writer Audre Lorde’s 1977 essay on the intersections of creativity and activism that were not only essential to her own work, but also to a diverse group of feminist thinkers at the time.
It was with this understanding of the power of creativity that Maymanah Farhat curated the exhibition, beginning with Miné Okubo’s 1946 graphic memoir Citizen 13660. Having been detained alongside hundreds of fellow Japanese Americans from the San Francisco Bay Area after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and later incarcerated in a concentration camp in Utah, Okubo’s approach to art was strikingly similar to what Lorde described. For Okubo, documenting the realities of the camp not only allowed her to process her experiences, but also served as a way to communicate with her friends and peers on the outside, most of whom could not fully grasp what was taking place at the remote camps. Creativity was not a luxury, but necessary to survival.
The exhibition, which debuted at the Center for Book Arts in New York in 2019 before traveling to the San Francisco Center for the Book in 2020, was assembled with works that reflect a sense of commitment and purpose, a light that guides viewers through narratives that are otherwise buried or ignored. All of the artworks included in this exhibition were created from a place of subjectivity, from lived experiences that are filtered through the creative process then articulated in forms that invite the viewer to partake in what Lorde called “revolutionary awareness.”
Click here to read “On Refusal,” an essay by curator Maymanah Farhat that re-contextualizes Poetry Is Not a Luxury’s run at MCBA. Three new artworks by local artists* accompany the works originally curated for Center for Book Arts.
Get the Poetry Is Not a Luxury Catalog
Visit the exhibition during our open hours, Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm and Thursdays until 7pm.
Free and open to the public
WhereMCBA Main Gallery
WhenMarch 18–May 14, 2022
ReceptionMarch 18, 2022; 6–9pm
Curator & artists remarks at 7pmexhibition tourCenter for Book Arts, New York | 2019
San Francisco Center For the Book | 2020
Minnesota Center for Book Arts | 2022
Maymanah Farhat’s art historical research and curatorial work focus on underrepresented artists and forgotten art scenes. Since 2005, she has written on modern and contemporary art, contributing to edited volumes, artist monographs, and museum and gallery catalogs. She has also written for Brooklyn Rail, Art Journal, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, Vogue Arabia, Harper’s Bazaar, Arabia, Art + Auction, and Apollo.
Farhat has curated exhibitions throughout the U.S. and abroad, notably at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, San Francisco Center for the Book, Pro Arts Gallery & Commons, Oakland, Center for Book Arts, Manhattan, Arab American National Museum, Virginia Commonwealth University Gallery in Doha, Qatar, Art Dubai, and the Beirut Exhibition Center. In 2014, she was included among Foreign Policy’s annual list of 100 Leading Global Thinkers in recognition of her scholarship on Syrian art after the uprising. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Museum Administration from St. John’s University, New York.
Exhibiting Artists
Aurora De Armendi with Adriana Mendez Rodenas (Bronx, NY) | Zeina Barakeh (Alameda, CA) | Janine Biunno (Brooklyn, NY) | Ana Paula Cordeiro | Joyce Dallal (Culver City, CA) | Nancy Genn (Berkeley, CA) | Gelare Khoshgozaran (Los Angeles, CA) | Brenda Louie | Nancy Morejon with Ronaldo Estevez Jordan and Marciel Ruiz | Katherine Ng (Los Angeles, CA) | Miné Okubo | Martha Rosler | Zeinab Saab (Portland, VT) | Jacqueline Reem Salloum | Patricia Sarrafian Ward (East Burke, VT) | Jana Sim (Seoul, South Korea) | Sable Elyse Smith | Patricia Tavenner | Christine Wong Yap | Helen Zughaib (Washington, DC) | *Andrea Shaker (Minnesota) | *Lamia Abukhadra (Minnesota) | *Galilee Peaches (Minnesota)
Upcoming Exhibitions
