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Devan Shimoyama, Cry Baby: Warhol Museum | Pittsburgh, PA

Past exhibition
13 October - 13 March 2018
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
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Overview
Devan Shimoyama February, 2018 Silk flowers, beads, and rhinestones on fabric with steel mount and frame Dimensions variable wing span 75", and it's 50" tall with a depth of 10"
Devan Shimoyama
February, 2018
Silk flowers, beads, and rhinestones on fabric with steel mount and frame
Dimensions variable
wing span 75", and it's 50" tall with a depth of 10"

Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby will mark the first museum solo exhibition of Devan Shimoyama, Philadelphia-born painter and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Spanning his burgeoning career, this exhibition includes painting, photography, and sculpture, and a series of new works that will be on view for the first time. His work challenges cliché with daring and personal representations of the complexities of race and sexuality. In his recent barbershop paintings, Shimoyama transforms the hyper-masculine social space into queer fantasy where feminine glamour and fashion take over, and tender depictions of boys don floral capes and glitter-encrusted hair.

 

Shimoyama creates two distinct worlds—one an enchanted paradise, the other a queer imagining of the African American barbershop. Celebrated for fraternity and community, Shimoyama presents the barbershop as a space where young men and boys can feel shamed and vulnerable. In sculpture, he creates objects of mourning for Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, both examples of the aggressive targeting of African American youth as fearful or threatening. While canvases feel joyful and celebratory, they also present commentary on pain and sorrow. Teardrops lurk in the background of his landscapes or stream down the faces of his figures as a reminder of the racial injustices at work in contemporary society. Shimoyama presents a world where race, sexuality, and identity can operate from a point of freedom generated by inner strength.

 

This exhibition makes a unique connection to The Andy Warhol Museum’s permanent collection and brings to light contemporary insight into one of Warhol’s largest and yet most overlooked painting commissions, the Ladies and Gentlemen series of 1974-75. Visitors will find Shimoyama’s work in dialog with Warhol’s portraits of drag queens on the fourth floor of the museum’s permanent collection. Shimoyama’s confident and daring depictions of sexuality, race and queer performance help reclaim the agency and visibility that Warhol’s models have been denied and bring these paintings out from the shadows.

 

Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby is curated by Jessica Beck, The Milton Fine Curator of Art at The Andy Warhol Museum. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essays by Jessica Beck, Alex Fialho, and Rickey Laurentiis and interview by Emily Colucci with the artist.

 

Generous support of Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby is provided by the Quentin and Evelyn T. Cunningham Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Fine Foundation, Arts, Equity, & Education Fund, Karen and Jim Johnson, De Buck Gallery, Jim Spencer and Michael Lin, with additional support from Stacy and Samuel Freeman, V. Joy Simmons M.D., Mrs. Ellen and Mr. Jack Kessler, The Plastino Family Charitable Fund, and Mr. Howard C. Eglit.

 

— Curatorial text courtesy The Warhol Museum

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Works
  • Devan Shimoyama February, 2018 Silk flowers, beads, and rhinestones on fabric with steel mount and frame Dimensions variable wing span 75", and it's 50" tall with a depth of 10"
    Devan Shimoyama
    February, 2018
    Silk flowers, beads, and rhinestones on fabric with steel mount and frame
    Dimensions variable
    wing span 75", and it's 50" tall with a depth of 10"
  • Devan Shimoyama Weed Picker, 2018 Oil, color pencil, Flashe, rhinestones, acrylic, collage and glitter on canvas stretched over panel 84 x 72 x 3 in 213.4 x 182.9 x 7.6 cm
    Devan Shimoyama
    Weed Picker, 2018
    Oil, color pencil, Flashe, rhinestones, acrylic, collage and glitter on canvas stretched over panel
    84 x 72 x 3 in
    213.4 x 182.9 x 7.6 cm
  • Devan Shimoyama Tamir III, 2018 Chains, silk flowers, rhinestones, beads, and fabric on swing seat Dimensions variable
    Devan Shimoyama
    Tamir III, 2018
    Chains, silk flowers, rhinestones, beads, and fabric on swing seat
    Dimensions variable
Installation Views
  • Devan Shimoyama Cry Baby 2018 Awm Mas 01
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  • Devan Shimoyama Cry Baby 2018 Awm Mas 33
  • Devan Shimoyama Cry Baby 2018 Awm Mas 25
  • 43952146 10156190472794864 4909297475031924736 O 1482X720
  • 43951600 10156190472534864 7722503377489231872 O 1482X720
  • Img 79531
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  • 43744356 10156190472649864 4026766744646320128 O 1482X720
  • Img 79461
Videos
  • "Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby" at The Warhol

    "Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby" at The Warhol

    Read more
  • Devan Shimoyama in conversation with Mario Brito

    Devan Shimoyama in conversation with Mario Brito

    Cultured Magazine Read more
Press
  • February II, 2019 by Devan Shimoyama (Courtesy of Het Nieuwe Instituut)

    UNRAVELING THE TANGLED HISTORY OF THE HOODIE READ

    Brigit Katz, Smart News: Smithsonia.com, December 14, 2019
  • THIS IS NO TIME TO CRY WITH DEVAN SHIMOYAMA

    Maria Brito Co-Produced and Co-Edited by Peter Koloff and Maria Brito, Cultured, February 1, 2019
  • Photograph by Shikeith

    ARTIST DEVAN SHIMOYAMA TAKES ON RACE AND SEXUALITY WITH GLITTER AND RHINESTONES

    Noah Johnson, GQ Magazine, January 15, 2019
  • “Michael” (2018) by Devan Shimoyama, from his show “Cry, Baby,” at the Andy Warhol Museum.Credit...Devan Shimoyama, Richard Gerrig and Timothy Peterson

    PITTSBURGH REPORT: FIVE PLACES FOR HEALING THROUGH ART

    Martha Schwendner, The New York TImes, January 2, 2019
  • Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby at The Andy Warhol Museum

    THE EMERGENCE OF A BRASH YOUNG PAINTER

    David Carrier and Graham Shearing, HYPERALLERGIC, December 8, 2018
  • Devan Shimoyama’s Snake Baby

    THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM WOWS WITH THE GLITTER AND GRIT OF DEVAN SHIMOYAMA: CRY, BABY

    Amanda Waltz, Pittsburgh City Paper, October 24, 2018
  • Devan Shimoyama in front of one of his paintings in Cry, Baby, at the Warhol Museum. Photo: Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette

    DEVAN SHIMOYAMA WITH HIS 2018 WORK 11 ‘CRY, BABY’: DEVAN SHIMOYAMA’S YOUNG CAREER TAKES OFF WITH SOLO SHOW AT THE WARHOL

    M. THOMAS, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 19, 2018
  • THE PAINTER REIMAGINING RARELY SEEN WARHOL WORK WITH BLACK DRAG QUEENS

    Lexi Manatakis, DAZED, October 12, 2018
  • ARTIST EMBRACES ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON RACE

    Andrew Ptaschinski, Carnegie Mellon University, October 9, 2018
  • WARHOL MUSEUM DRAWS PARALLELS WITH DEVAN SHIMOYAMA’S “CRY, BABY”

    Amanda Reed, Pittsburgh Current, October 9, 2018
  • “Snake Baby” (2016), by Devan Shimoyama, whose solo show at the Andy Warhol Museum opens on Oct. 13.Credit...Devan Shimoyama

    A GOOD YEAR FOR YOUNGER ARTISTS, IMMIGRANT CITIZENS AND OUTRAGE IMAGE

    Holland Cotter, New York Times, September 9, 2018
  • FROM MARK BRADFORD IN BALTIMORE TO VICTOR HUGO IN LA: 33 MUSEUM SHOWS AROUND THE US WORTH TRAVELING FOR (EXCERPT)

    Caroline Goldsten and Sarah Cascone, Artnet News, September 5, 2018
  • Andy Warhol, Wilhelmina Ross, 1974, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

    ANDY WARHOL’S TRANS SUBJECTS FINALLY GET NAMED (EXCERPT)

    Elizabeth Hoover, Paper, August 24, 2018
  • Devan Shimoyama, Cry, Baby (installation view), Andy Warhol Museum, 2018

    Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby

    Melissa Hunter Davis, Sugarcane Magazine, July 23, 2018

Related artist

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    Devan Shimoyama

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