For Donald J. Trump, his campaign against the Smithsonian Institution boils down to an image problem. “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL,” went one of his splenetic diatribes on Truth Social (the intonation and punctuation are his), “where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future…This Country cannot be WOKE because WOKE IS BROKE.”

This might prompt us to ask, “Are you suggesting slavery wasn’t the atrocity it actually was?” or to point out that there is plenty of American Success and Brightness and Future at countless other institutions across the nation’s capital and the country — not least, of course, at his proposed sculpture project “Garden of American Heroes.” But that is beside the point. Trump’s intention is to elevate a single image of America above all others. This carries the whiff of propaganda and similar historical attempts not only to tarnish and trash any opposing views, but to exterminate them (Aryan Nation and fundamentalist regimes anyone?). 

Images and identities are too layered, multifaceted and constantly morphing to define them restrictively. Which is why art shows like “otherwise,” the thesis exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D (through Dec. 13) are so important. They prove that no matter what tyrants attempt to censor or what messages they try to manipulate, you cannot establish hegemonies that will endure because artists’ minds — all minds really — are free, infinitely variegated and indestructible. 

One artist the POTUS targeted for vilification was Ayana V. Jackson, specifically her project “From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya,” a multimedia installation inspired by the Afrofuturist myth articulated by the Detroit musical duo Drexciya in the early 1990s. According to this alternative narrative, during the Middle Passage, pregnant women who were thrown off the slave ships or jumped willingly into the sea (and supposedly perished) actually established a vital underwater civilization. 

Two of the staged self-portraits from that exhibition are here, and they are things of elaborate formalist beauty. What could Trump have found objectionable, except that these remind us of one of the greatest injustices in American history? These events happened, like it or not, and these photographs are beautiful expressions — if confrontational ones — of hopeful outcomes from the perspective of a cultural descendent who suffered because of them. I would say there is, in fact, astonishing Success, Brightness and Future in these imaginings. Perhaps what drew so much ire has more to do with the fact that it is Black and Brown people claiming the resilience of these qualities, which somehow challenges the President’s constricted image of America. 

This show is a kind of companion piece to the Ogunquit Museum of American Art’s “Where the Real Lies” (through Nov. 16), an exhibition that opened this spring, which “brings together nineteen contemporary artists who imagine spaces to find strength and self-understanding in the face of the tumultuous realities that define our daily lives.” It is well worth seeing it in tandem with “otherwise.” 

At ICA, however, the emphasis is particularly on creating transformative personal narratives. It is the first exhibition of a series at ICA that will explore artistic escapism, specifically how artists engage in storytelling and worldbuilding to cope with difficult contemporary issues and imagine solutions and/or better futures.

The creativity here is astonishing. Curtained off in the second gallery is a six-minute digital video called “Thank You, St. Anthony” by David Bayrus. It is a work of fantastical (and fantastic) imagination, with forms and images that feel contemporary, though the overall look of the film seems to hark back to black-and-white B-grade science fiction flicks. Bayrus wordlessly relates a five-act story that chronicles the dawning of a new civilization arising from human-inflicted environmental apocalypse. As depressing as that sounds, the piece is about rebirth after destruction, both sad and hopeful, cautionary and exhilarating.

On the other side of the curtain is an installation of still photos and a video by the duo Mauricio Muñoz and Andrew Roberts. According to the wall plaque, they “play a pair of orcs hiding and living peacefully in the woods, despite the segregation imposed on magical creatures.” Filled with bad acting (perhaps satirically so) and cute-couple bliss, it will make you laugh, though at heart it is attempting to explore the very somber subject of “othering.” It wasn’t my favorite work, probably because the humor and tackiness chips away a bit too much at the seriousness of the message. But if this brand of escapism sparks contemplation for some, then I’m all for it.

There is exquisite craftsmanship and execution in the “Earthgrazer” intaglio prints of Alex Jackson and panel pieces by Felipe Baeza that incorporate ink, acrylic, graphite, varnish and cut paper. “Unruly Forms II” by Baeza, for example, draws from Meso-American mythology, science fiction and literature about queer futures. The piece shows a new being that challenges cultural binaries and our disconnection from the natural world, a disconnection stemming from a hierarchy that places humans above other life forms. This work envisions a magical creature that is part tentacled octopus, part human. It is a spellbinding apparition possessing a singular beauty and feels like a kind of mythological demi-god.

Alex Jackson’s intaglios adapt the concept of rare meteors that “graze” the earth’s atmosphere. Jackson situates these in a larger narrative that takes place within the body of a man who has morphed into a black hole. They reminded me of Blake in their otherworldliness and execution, and also in the way they seem to posit a mystical “source” (the black hole) from which all existence emerges and inside which all is one, without hierarchy or caste. 

Also masterfully rendered are the three sprayed ink-and-conté crayon “Wild Seeds” works by the biracial Black Korean artist Samantha Yun Wall. The specific reference is to Eopsin, a Korean serpent-like goddess who protects the home. According to the myth, Eopsin was crammed into a box and cast into the sea. But in this telling, her form intertwines with Octavia Butler’s Anyanwu, a healer who could shape-shift into animals to evade capture and protect her community. 

In the West, serpent women are considered evil. But Wall uses them as symbols of feminine power. From a purely visual perspective, however, the mix of flat areas of ink and conté with meticulously drafted hands and feet also seem to unify artistic forms of both East (flat perspective, use of ink washes, minimalist form) and West (extremities depicted with the rigor and sensuality of Dürer or Renaissance painting). 

The Senegalese-American artist Pap Souleye Fall’s “NIT, NITAAY GARABAM (arc 2)” is an enormous peanut-shaped sculpture that dominates the center of the rear-most gallery. The piece carries more associations than I can go into here: the peanut industry in West Africa, memories of recently deceased childhood artist friend Baxter Koziol, and a character named Dead Pixel, to name a few. The information plaque will provide more context, but what comes across is the intricate complexity and wild imagination of Fall’s mind. 

Dead Pixel — explained as “a character named after a glitch or failed pixel on a screen”—is a fitting riposte to Trump’s bland, homogenized image of America. Within the context of the President’s one-dimensional view, it can represent the mischievous, insurgent spirit within us that will inexorably disrupt that oversimplified hegemony being imposed upon us. Dead Pixel is untamable, creative, spontaneous and ever aware of the infinite variety of realities that make all of us individual, uncategorizable and precious.

Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland and can be reached at [email protected]. This column is supported by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation.

‘otherwise’ 

Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design, 522 Congress St., Portland. Through Dec. 16 (“Pair” and “towels”) and through Apr. 6 (“Rest”). Admission is free, donations are welcome. For more, call 207-899-5029 or meca.edu/ica