Surreality has become reality. Populations worldwide experience dispossession writ large as war, natural disasters, and authoritarian regimes force migration and regularize loss. Amidst newly fractured communities and an increasingly ubiquitous media machine, social life grows only more disconnected, misinformed, and seemingly unreal. Arms, Feet, and Fitful Dreams, rising star Luke Agada’s newest show, appropriates Surrealist aesthetics to unfurl this strange new reality, centering on the experiences of the contemporary African diaspora.
Though reminiscent of Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dalí’s placeless dreamscapes, Agada’s paintings reference tangible phenomena. The show’s title comes from a New York Times article, “African and Invisible: The Other New York Migrant Crisis,” which describes one overcrowded migrant shelter as a “tangle of arms and feet and fitful dreams.” As Chicago confronts a similar crisis, Agada’s work crucially illuminates the peril and uncertainty these asylum-seekers often face.
