2015
American
Photographs
Works On Paper
Inkjet print
Sheet: 9 × 15 in. (22.86 × 38.1 cm)
2016.220
Not on view
8/40
Signed in black ink below image in the lower right margin: "Tameka".
Signed, dated, and editioned in black ink in the lower right margin: "Tameka, 2015 8/40".
Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund
DIRECTOR’S DISCRETIONARY PURCHASE FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION ONLY

TAMEKA NORRIS (AMERICAN, BORN 1979)
Wash N’ Dry, 2015 Digital print
9 × 15 in. (22.86 × 38.1 cm)

PROVENANCE:
The artist
1708 Gallery, Richmond, Virginia

CONDITION:
There are minor dents and planar distortions visible in raking and specular light which can be remedied through humidification and flattening.

VENDOR:
1708 Gallery, 319 West Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23220

PRICE AND SOURCE:
$737.10; Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund

SUMMARY:
This photograph was purchased at 1708 Gallery’s annual auction on February 27, 2016. Tameka Norris, a young performance artist whose work has already received national acclaim, had an exhibition titled "Tameka Norris: Not Acquiescing" at 1708, Richmond’s nonprofit, artist-run gallery, from October 23 through December 5, 2015. In the exhibition she showed this photograph, a film still, alongside the 2014 video performance from which it comes, "Meka Jean: How She Got Good". The piece had originally been shown in 2014 in association with Prospect 3, a New Orleans art biennial. Norris developed her “Meka Jean” alter-ego for her performances that explore the conditions of post-Katrina New Orleans, where the artist is currently based.

Norris graduated from UCLA in 2010 with a Bachelors of Fine Art and she earned her Masters of Fine Art at Yale University in 2012. Also in 2012 she was included in Contemporary Art Museum, Houston’s major exhibition, Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art. In 2013 Modern Painters Magazine named her one of twenty-four artists to watch in 2013, and she continues to be included in key group exhibitions. This photograph will resonate in both the 21st Century and the Photography galleries.

Given VMFA’s strategic emphasis on African American art, this work by Tameka Norris adds an important emerging artist to our collection. Its purchase also provided financial support to a key artistic institution in the city and signaled the museum’s support of the level of exhibitions 1708 continues to produce.

Sarah Eckhardt
Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary 22 June 2016

© Tameka Norris

Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.