In Cultured Magazine, Kate Sutton reviews Rodney McMillian’s “The Black Show” at ICA, along with his show “Landscape Paintings” at MoMA PS1:
“‘We are living in a time when the disparities between the wealthy and the poor are larger than any other time in this country’s history, and yet what is presented to the American public are stories about the possibilities of success for all,’ McMillian observed in a 2008 essay. In addition to his sculptures, the artist has been working to rewrite these narratives through videos and performances that use a cast of recurring characters to recontextualize everything from lyrics by Erykah Badu or the Rolling Stones and the misadventures of A.A. Milne’s Eeyore to Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist treatises on death and freedom and Lee Atwater’s damning admission of the Republican strategy for veiling racial discrimination. These films play a central role in the ICA Philadelphia’s ‘Rodney McMillian: The Black Show.’ The exhibition’s title is drawn somewhat loosely from a book jacket blurb on Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’: ‘It’s not only a black story—it’s a very dark one.’”