Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves

Installation view, Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves, Tang Teaching Museum, 2024, photo by Mindy McDaniel

Installation view, Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves, Tang Teaching Museum, 2023, photo by Mindy McDaniel

Detail view, A Family Tree for Earthlings, 2023, in Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves, Tang Teaching Museum, 2023, photo by Mindy McDaniel

One Only Earth: A Grounding Ritual in Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves, Tang Teaching Museum, October 21, 2023, photo by Megan Mumford

Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves is the fifth exhibition in a series that invites an artist to create a museum community space devoted to art, conversation, and contemplation. Yvette Molina presents new art and designs in this site-specific and evolving installation centered around the four elements—earth, air, water, fire—and a fifth constituent, the cosmos. In focusing on these ancient, fundamental substances, Molina reminds us that humans, plants, and all earthly beings are made of star stuff and survive by the elements. She encourages us to consider care as entangled within circles of life—care for one another, whether human or non-human, is care for ourselves and for all. Throughout the exhibition’s two years, Molina is inviting other artists to present their work in the space, bringing together multiple perspectives, styles, and materials and regularly re-energizing the installation’s balance between comfort and provocation.

Yvette Molina is a Mexican-American artist focused on the relationship between justice and care. Her work, often emanating from her community engagement and activism, incorporates processional banners, ritual, storytelling, costumes, collage, painting, and sculpture. Molina has exhibited across the United States and internationally, including at the Stockholm Fringe Festival, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Arsenal Contemporary Art, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NADA FAIR, and the Legion of Honor and de Young Museums of California. Molina lives in Oakland, California.

Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves is organized by Associate Curator Rebecca McNamara, in collaboration with the artist, and is supported by Friends of the Tang. The exhibition was also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.