Athena LaTocha: The Past Never Sleeps

In this installation of monumental works on paper, Athena LaTocha invites viewers to meditate on the landscape as a geographic space, a repository of history, and a personified living entity. Her works often incorporate materials and elements taken from sites referenced in their titles. These sites are layered with history that underpins their vibrant and visceral presence. In extracting materials from each site for use in the paintings, LaTocha draws attention to the physical and cultural scars that are incised into the earth through industry, habitation, and traumatic events that underscore the ongoing unrest within the social and political landscape.

Cy Twombly, Morocco, 1952/1953

This pioneering exhibition charts the early pilgrimage of one of the most influential figures in 20th-century American art. Cy Twombly, Morocco, 1952/1953 captures the artist’s enduring and style-defining fascination with archaeology and the historic landscapes of Morocco through the pages of his sketchbooks, photographs, and two paintings. Archival materials from VMFA’s Margaret R. and Robert M. Freeman Library add depth, contextualizing the artist’s travels and interest in North Africa and the broader Mediterranean region.

Jennie C. Jones: High as the Listening Skies and The Edges of Heaven, Rest

This immersive installation at VMFA features two sound works. The first composition, High as the Listening Skies, features three gospel choirs from Houston, Los Angeles, and Baltimore, performing the song “A City Called Heaven.” The song was popularized by gospel icon and civil rights activist Mahalia Jackson. The second featured work, The Edges of Heaven, Rest, is primarily tonal and associated with the concept of music as having healing energy. Jones layers audio samples—effectively collaging composition from Black composer Alvin Singleton.

The two works, which can be experienced together in the chapel located in the museum’s Sculpture Garden, create a striking balance between the crescendo of a spiritual ecstatic and a meditative calm. Interwoven, they emit a sonic framing that bridges the physical world to the ethereal realm, offering the transcendent and transformational possibilities of sound.