Fred Wilson:
Objects and Installations 1979-2000

Issues of racial bias, gender, class, politics and aesthetics feature prominently in Fred Wilson’s inquiries into the complex relationship between the art object and the museum. The museum itself is Wilson’s medium and muse: his oeuvre consists of faux museum installations and finely wrought mock art objects that use beauty as a vehicle for helping people to reflect on difficult or upsetting themes. Wilson mimics museum practices — exhibition design and display, lighting, curator’s labels, and wall colors — a process he calls “a trompe l’oeil of curating,” in order to create unexpected and often startling artworks that question the museum’s complicity in perpetuating certain social inequalities.