Enter the Mirror at the MCA: a show about looking at what we don't want to see

The Enter the Mirror exhibit at the MCA is all about looking at the things we don't want to see. Sometimes it feels like it's just easier to try to ignore or avoid the unpleasant things in life. We want to hide. We want to look away. We want to pretend it's not happening. We want to act like everything's fine. We try to distance ourselves, aesthetically, emotionally, physically. The art in Enter the Mirror is a confrontation with the viewer.

Upon entering the gallery, you can hear Adrian Piper speaking softly but directly from a TV in the corner about race, racism, and identity. Her installation, Cornered, is an invitation to sit, listen, learn something.

These are only a few of the millions of names inscribed in Chris Burden's The Other Vietnam Memorial.

Standing at the Grave of Emmett Till, day of exhumation, June 1st, 2005 (Alsip, IL) by Jason Lazarus captures a moment in the aftermath of a lynching that went unpunished.

Off and Gone by Melvin Edwards is a sculpture reminiscent of the implements of lynching.

Doris Salcedo's Disremembered III is a shroud of burnt sewing needles, evoking the pain of grief over the still-unresolved issue of gun violence.

Erika Rothenberg's America's Joyous Future sums up our dominant culture's preference for denial.

One of my favorite writers, Toni Cade Bambara, asked “what are we pretending not to know today?” The work in this show demands that we stop pretending. It implores us to know. I see the work that I shared in this post as necessary interventions for a country that paints on a smile and boasts about its wealth, success, and exceptionalism while refusing to address its problems. Considering the fact that President Biden declared the pandemic over with no evidence of that this past Sunday, Enter the Mirror is a very timely show. 

It can be painful to confront these things, but Anne Collier's Woman With a Camera says don't look away.