SCAD University Press, the imprint of the Savannah College of Art and Design, announces the release of Chase Hall: The Close of Day, a monograph commemorating Hall’s first solo institutional exhibition, presented at the SCAD Museum of Art, Feb. 28–Aug. 21, 2023. The exhibition united 20 new and recent paintings and two site-related installations that mine myriad cultural references, iconography, and figures of the past and present to address global issues rooted in race and labor in relation to commodities like coffee and cotton. The catalogue features a foreword by SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace, an essay by Daniel S. Palmer, chief curator of the SCAD Museum of Art, and a conversation between Hall and Larry Ossei-Mensah.
“One of the initial ideas of the show was to encapsulate the last ten years as an artist and what it means to give yourself over to something—at the close of the day, to have known you left it all in your work, or left it all on the field,“ said Hall. “I give everything to my work and want to take a second to say thank you to everyone who has supported me on this journey.
Throughout The Close of Day, readers delve into Hall’s practice, which interrogates the realities of race in America through innovative figurative painting techniques. Using coffee grounds as pigment on raw cotton canvases, Hall varies the levels of coarseness and fineness of the ground beans to achieve a range of tonal values, metaphorically articulating a non-monolithic Black experience. The catalogue also contextualizes Hall’s installation work in the exhibition, which included a century-old, self-playing Wurlitzer organ positioned within a custom brick room referencing the museum’s historic structure and the enslaved people who built it.
“The generosity and drive with which Hall created this exhibition, and the thoughtful, reflective manner that he brought to sharing it with the thousands of SCAD students and public audiences who engaged with it, speak to his awareness of the importance and opportunities of presenting his first solo museum exhibition at a teaching institution like the SCAD Museum of Art,” said Palmer. “We are honored to bring The Close of Day to the world in book form and hope that it continues to encourage societal dialogue with every page turned.”
Published by SCAD University Press with the SCAD Museum of Art, Chase Hall: The Close of Day is co-produced by David Kordansky Gallery, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, and SCAD. David Kordansky Gallery will host an artist talk and book signing, Sept. 7, 10 a.m., at 520 W. 20th St., New York.
Chase Hall: The Close of Day is available for purchase now at shopSCAD.com
