In 1971, Sun Ra said "Black people need a mythocracy, not a democracy because they'll never make it in history.…Truth is not permissible for me to use because I'm not righteous and holy, I'm evil, that's because I'm black and I'm not subscribed to any types of righteousness." Sondra Perry's new video installation examines this active disinterest in the respectability that blackness has been perpetually asked to earn by white culture, providing a site in which her work, as well its viewers, can begin to reimagine standing value systems and moral structures. Through the lens of the Alien movie franchise— one which has been providing allegories of colonialism and mutability for decades—Perry's work asks: how do agents of power behave when their subjects become absolutely unpredictable, fluidly inhabiting societal norms in order to destroy them? How can these defiantly multiplicitous subjects be watched? And how is veracity redefined by this surveillance? Curated by Lumi Tan.

Opening reception: Wednesday, November 2, 6–8pm

November 2–December 10, 2016