Crystal Z Campbell explores aftermath of Philippine colonization in multidisciplinary ‘Currents 124’

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 30, 2024—The fall “Currents” exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum features new works by multidisciplinary artist Crystal Z Campbell. The free exhibition opens Friday, Oct. 25.

Campbell is a visual artist as well as an experimental filmmaker and writer who uses archival interventions and abstraction to shed new light on overlooked historical narratives around the “underloved.” Influenced by their Black and Filipinx familial history, Campbell’s works reveal echoes of U.S. colonialism in the Philippines. The artworks, made in a range of media, fuse traces of material histories, abstraction, and a subtle evocation of the Philippine landscape and colonial extraction.

Campbell’s colorful and colorless blown-glass apothecary vessels—made at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Wash.—are landmarked throughout the exhibition, presenting these objects as alchemical symbols for healing from colonial legacies. These legacies relate specifically to St. Louis, since more than 1,200 Filipinos were brought to the city to feature as living displays in the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, with a number of them dying from disease.

A touchstone image shows African American soldier David Fagen, who deserted from the American army during the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) to fight with the Philippine Revolutionary Army, thus becoming a symbol of resistance to colonialism. Paper works in the exhibition, which were created during Campbell’s time as a fellow at the Dieu Donné papermaking studio in Brooklyn, are made of manila envelopes and manila rope, alluding to the centrality of the Philippine abaca industry to the U.S. colonial project. A video installation, “Makahiya,” evocatively traces the ways in which nature, U.S. colonization of the Philippines, and abstraction are intertwined.

Campbell is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Fellowship, which included this exhibition and a residency at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Founded in 1978, the “Currents” series serves as a laboratory for emerging and mid-career artists to create and exhibit new work. Featured artists have included Matthew Buckingham, Dale Chihuly, Leonardo Drew, Brian Eno, Ellen Gallagher, Frank Gehry, Donald Judd, Julie Mehretu, Richard Serra and Cindy Sherman.

“Currents 124: Crystal Z Campbell” is on view through March 9, 2025, in Gallery 250 and the Roxanne H. Frank Gallery 257. Campbell will welcome visitors during a meet-and-great at 7 pm on Oct. 25 in the exhibition and will lead an artist talk in the museum’s auditorium at 11 am on Saturday, Oct. 26.

The exhibition is curated by Simon Kelly, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art. This presentation is generously supported in part by the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Endowment Fund.

CONTACT: Molly Morris, molly.morris@slam.org, 314.655.5250