Jamal Cyrus Joins Permanent Collection

Ruby City is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of Inner Necessity to Outer Time (Run Mary Run), 2021, a monumental textile by Jamal Cyrus. Based in Houston, Cyrus has developed an expansive research-based practice that examines the black diaspora. His multilayered works frequently weave together references to black identity, political movements, music, and history unearthing little known or hidden histories. His resultant works include assemblage, installation, performance, prints, sculpture, textiles and works on paper.

Inner Necessity to Outer Time (Run Mary Run), 2021, as the artist states, is “a type of diagram of the dances and music making that would have taken place in La Place Publique, aka Congo Square. It is based on the counterclockwise movement of the dancers, and the increasing pace of the music, particularly that whose motive is to invoke trance states. The diagram is superimposed onto the background of the cosmos. Interesting to note is that the Northern hemisphere stars travel clockwise around the pole star Polaris, which served as the navigational tool of the enslaved seeking to escape the plantation.”

This new work by the artist is currently on view through January 23, 2022 in Prospect 5: Yesterday We Said Tomorrow in New Orleans. It joins many others in the collection like the work of Terry Adkins which addresses similar themes as well as the work of artists such as Maya Lin, Milagros de la Torre and Teresita Fernandez. Their quietly subversive works use celestial connections to represent environmental or socio-political concerns. 

Ruby City is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of Inner Necessity to Outer Time (Run Mary Run), 2021, a monumental textile by Jamal Cyrus. Based in Houston, Cyrus has developed an expansive research-based practice that examines the black diaspora. His multilayered works frequently weave together references to black identity, political movements, music, and history unearthing little known or hidden histories. His resultant works include assemblage, installation, performance, prints, sculpture, textiles and works on paper. 

Inner Necessity to Outer Time (Run Mary Run), 2021, as the artist states, is “a type of diagram of the dances and music making that would have taken place in La Place Publique, aka Congo Square. It is based on the counterclockwise movement of the dancers, and the increasing pace of the music, particularly that whose motive is to invoke trance states. The diagram is superimposed onto the background of the cosmos. Interesting to note is that the Northern hemisphere stars travel clockwise around the pole star Polaris, which served as the navigational tool of the enslaved seeking to escape the plantation.”

This new work by the artist is currently on view through January 23, 2022 in Prospect 5: Yesterday We Said Tomorrow in New Orleans. It joins many others in the collection like the work of Terry Adkins which addresses similar themes as well as the work of artists such as Maya Lin, Milagros de la Torre and Teresita Fernandez. Their quietly subversive works use celestial connections to represent environmental or socio-political concerns. 

You can experience the first survey exhibition of artist Jamal Cyrus, which recently closed and spanned fifteen years of this artist’s prodigious career, at The Blaffer Art Museum website.