Main Space

March 4th - April 2nd, 2023
Take Root in the Air Darryl DeAngelo Terrell
Opening Reception: Saturday March 4th, 5 - 7pm

Ortega y Gasset Projects is pleased to present Take Root in the Air, a solo exhibition in the Main Gallery by Detroit-born and Brooklyn-based artist Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, curated by OyG co-director Adam Liam Rose.  An Opening Reception will be held on Saturday, March 4th, 2023 from 5 - 7 pm.

Take Root in the Air marks the first New York solo exhibition for Darryl DeAngelo Terrell. It consists of an installation spanning photography and sound, with one sound work created in collaboration with interdisciplinary artist R. Treshawn Williamson. At the heart of the exhibition are photographs from Terrell’s series “A Way to Get Gone,” whereby the artist has been seeking and creating spaces for black liberation and escape through the use of portals. The portals appear in each image as a glistening golden orb, smudge, or a mysterious aura, created through the liberatory act of dancing and moving as the shutter clicks. The images were made during Terrell’s travels, calling forth a cross-global network of escape, accessible only to black bodies and made tangible only through black eyes. As the artist writes: “...So we’re looking for freedom, right? We know that it is a possible thing that can be achieved, but here, as black people, we can not access it, but by entering a portal, it becomes tangible, I’m talking bout complete liberation. Again only WE can see them, their shine, their glisten, their golden color...”. Through these works, Terrell imagines a world of possibility where true freedom, joy, and peace might be found.

As both a point of expansion and departure from the portal works, Terrel includes a new series of black & white photographs titled “We Celebrate Your Arrival,” influenced by the ring shout, a ritual first practiced by African slaves in the West Indies and the United States, characterized by a transcendent moving, shuffling, clapping, and stomping in circular rotation. The images pull together the liminal space of the surrounding portal images, celebrating and embracing those who have made it through. To Take Root in the Air is to find black liberation in the bodily acts of care, movement, song and praise, leading to transcendence. 

Artist Bio

Darryl DeAngelo Terrell (b. 1991), Is a Brooklyn Based, Detroit Born Artist primarily working within lens-based media, performance, and writing; they’re also a Curator, DJ, Educator and Organizer. Darryl received their Bachelor of Fine Art from Wayne State University in 2015 and their Master of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017. Darryl works under the philosophy of F.U.B.U (This Shit Is For Us*). They’re always thinking about how their work can aid a larger conversation about blackness and its many intersections.  Currently, Darryl is working across two bodies of work; one work is currently exploring afro-surrealism, thinking of how to get all black people free from the presence of whiteness, getting black people to “elsewhere” where the black diaspora can have complete freedom. Darryl is also exploring queerness and desire by way of a fat black femme non-binary alter-ego named Dion. Both bodies are flushed out through photography, video, activations, sound, and writing. 

Darryl is a 2023 Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York Artist in Resident, 2022 Fire Island Artist in Resident, 2022 Lighthouse Work Fellow, 2021 Black Rock Senegal Artist in Resident, 2021 The Black Embodiment Studio Arts Writing Resident, 2020/2021 Red Bull House of Art Resident, 2019/2020 Document Detroit Fellow, 2019 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow in Visual Arts. Terrell has Exhibited and/or Performed at the  Dakar, Senegal, for the Dak'Art, La Biennale, The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago IL), Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), Cranbrook Museum of Arts (Bloomfield Hills, MI), The Trout Museum of Art, (Appleton WI), Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, (New York City, NY), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago - (Chicago IL)
https://www.darryldterrell.com/
https://www.instagram.com/blkboyshine/

Curator Bio

Adam Liam Rose (b. 1990), is an Israeli-American artist and curator, based in Brooklyn, NY. Rose was a fellow at the Bronx Museum of the Arts' AIM Program, The Drawing Center’s Viewing Program, and the Art & Law Program. He was awarded artist residencies at the Fire Island Artist Residency (Fire Island, NY), Triangle Arts Association (Brooklyn, NY), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), Ox-Bow School of Art (Saugatuck, MI), A-Z West: Institute of Investigative Living (Joshua Tree, CA), the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT) and the Chicago Artists Coalition's HATCH Residency (Chicago, IL).  Rose's publication 'Between the Bars' (Genderfail Press, 2021) is in the artist's book collection of MoMa Library, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, PRATT Institute, and The Frick Fine Arts Library in Pittsburgh. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago ('12) and an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts (‘17). Rose joined as co-director at artist-run gallery Ortega y Gasset Projects in 2019.