Kandis Williams: A Surface

Kandis Williams (US, b. 1985) wields collage as a tool of Black feminist resistance. By fragmenting and layering images, she dismantles entrenched power structures and reconfigures dominant narratives. Comprising over 50 pieces across video, works on paper, installation, and sculpture, A Surface explores the artist’s engagement with collage as a transformative practice.

At the center of Williams’s work is an interrogation of the treatment of Black bodies in visual culture. In gods and monsters that white people make up to kill us all (2024), she breaks open the white cultural imaginary, exposing ways that mythical monsters reflect societal fears of the “other.” Elsewhere, she collages photos of adult film actors and incarcerated workers onto silk leaves, linking the capitalist exploitation of flesh to that of land. The stage and screen too become sites of intervention, as Williams uncovers systems of bodily control while celebrating Black dance traditions that move beyond them (Triadic Ballet, 2021).

Kandis Williams: A Surface presents the most comprehensive survey of the artist-scholar’s career to date. Delving into her deeply researched practice, A Surface reorients the archive and reframes the politics of visibility, emerging with a vision of liberation.