Holding Up the Mirror featured 45 selected artworks from 38 CIA alumni artists.

As the Roulet-Hernandez Family Guest Curator, I was hoping to create a broad curatorial premise for alumni to connect with that is rooted in art history, as well as open-ended enough to allow for a variety of contemporary aesthetic and conceptual approaches.

The mirror in art history—as much a symbol for pride or vanity (Vanitas) as it was an allegory for knowledge and truth (Veritas)—can be also be envisioned as a portal for transformation.

 The mirror is perhaps the earliest “screen” known to humans, and likewise one in which the cult of personal ego is actively lauded. While empathy increasingly becomes vilified, the spectacle of our current day ubiquitous screens is also becoming an increasingly less-reliable source for knowledge and facts.

My aim was to curate an exhibition that featured a wide variety of CIA artists who were doing this kind of truth-telling. The work of the CIA Alumni in Holding Up the Mirror reflected the reality of this moment back for us to see—without sacrificing their own humanity and compassion along the way.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: adamchuck, Eli Betchik, Davon Brantley, Jessica Calderwood, Timothy Callaghan, Kimberly Chapman, Kristen Cliffel, Susan Danko, Susan Donovan Lowe, Valerie Goodman, Valerie Grossman, Lauralee Hutson, Sky Ironhorse, Sydney Nicole Kay, Lori Kella, Branden Koch, Ronald Krygowski, Delinda Mariani, Colleen McCulla, Mike Meier, Thao Nguyen, Annie O'Brien, Deborah Pinter, Jen Prox Weisblat, Gwen Putz, Daniel Razo, Sherae Rimpsey, Mila Roeder, Lauren Sammon, Monica Sheets, Ryan Skedel, Nova Stewart, Omid Tavakoli, Ron Testa, Kimberlee Venable, Amani Williams, Tumnus Rex, and Rachel Yurkovich.

Gallery documentation photographs by Jacob Koestler.