DumbSun

DUMBSUN explores the relations between experimental Afrofuturist jazz musician Sun Ra and Walt Disney’s 1941 animated film Dumbo. Featuring new work by artist Tomas Moreno, this narrative exhibition presents his research on the psychedelic underpinnings of Dumbo, highlighting the political imaginary of America’s twentieth century through the media landscape. The sculptures, video, sound, and works on paper in the installation point to the phantoms of indigenism in the inception of Dumbo, which took place during World War II while Disney was acting as a “Good Neighbor” ambassador for president Franklin Roosevelt overseas in South America. In 1988, Sun Ra and “The Arkestra,” his ensemble, were commissioned to reinterpret the song “Pink Elephants on Parade” from a surrealist scene in the film, in which the young elephant accidentally gets drunk and discovers he can fly. Since that point, Sun Ra developed a special affinity for the character and went on to reinterpret many Disney songs throughout his career. The sculptures reflect a layering of labor, psychoanalysis, and an inscription of the subject in the body as a site of agency/power through mimesis and alterity. This exhibition includes a film series organized by Moreno on Walt Disney, South America, and Sun Ra, including: Dumbo (1941), Theodore Thomas’s documentary Walt & El Grupo (2008), Edward Bland’s The Cry of Jazz (1959), and John Coney’s Space is the Place (1974).

Closing reception on Thursday, March 20, 2014, 7–8pm in conjunction with Expanded Sun Ra: An experimental hip-hop/expanded cinema performance night featuring Brian Cross, Mochilla + a special guest.