Gods have taken over the Pittsburgh Glass Center, transforming it into a Black, queer Kemetic temple. Displayed as part of the Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers exhibition, the 16 life-size glass statues of deities, divinely crafted by Marques Redd and Mikael Owunna, connect physical and spiritual worlds to empower Black LGBTQ+ people.
Now on view at the Center through July 28, the multimedia exhibition is presented by the Rainbow Serpent Collective, an arts nonprofit co-founded by Redd and Owunna. They created the sculptures at the Center, where, in 2021, they started the project.
Redd expands on the title of the show, saying, “Gatekeepers comes from the Dagara spiritualist Malidoma Somé; he made this argument that, in his particular cultural context, LGBTQ people were known as gatekeepers. The idea is that because the creator was androgynous, LGBTQ people, because we could vibrate both masculine and feminine energy, had the special relationship to the creator and the special task of maintaining the gates or these highly charged portals between the physical and the spiritual world. So we're thinking about the spiritual purpose of Black LGBTQ people and how to revive ancient traditions that have been lost over time.”
Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers serves to reclaim the rich legacy of queer identity from the perspective of traditional African spiritual sciences, tracing the lineage of African cosmological systems to the present moment. Even in their fabrication of the sculptures, Redd and Owunna were in conversation with ancient Egypt, where, as archaeological evidence suggests, glassmaking originated.
The exhibition kicked off on May 3 with an opening reception that complemented the show’s mission of centering Black, queer culture and experiences, as well as the show’s Egyption influences. Among the festivities were a site-specific dance performance, a poetry reading, and a screening of Blackstar Sanctuary, an immersive virtual reality film co-directed by Redd and Owunna. Also included were Knowing the Evolutions of Ra, a live music performance co-composed by Jaronda Primrose and Redd, and a chance to view the Sovereign series from Granville Carroll, a self-described “contemporary visual artist and Afrofuturist” from Phoenix, Ariz.
The 16 Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers deities, all created through a lost-wax casting process, appear as busts made of black glass and resembling Kemetic granodiorite statues. Atop each bust is a glass-blown, hot-sculpted, uniquely colored headpiece, symbolizing that which the deity embodies. The deities line parallel white walls, eight on each side, facing each other, occupying tall black pedestals.
Colors from the radiant headpieces are sparsely scattered throughout the flesh of the deity on which it resides, sometimes forming luminous constellations. This is most apparent in Geb, the first deity we see. The speckles of color across Geb’s figure are almost as plentiful (though not as varied) as those that appear within the bodies of Owunna’s Infinite Essence series, where radiant galaxies were made visible on the bodies of Black models wearing fluorescent paint, who were then photographed in total darkness using an ultraviolet flash built by the artist. The fact that Geb is the first piece we encounter feels both like a nod to the artist's previous work, and like a familiar hand ushering us across the threshold of another portal.
While Owunna’s earlier photographic work considered African cosmologies by illuminating invisible forces, Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers illuminates maps for Black LGBTQ+ people’s navigation.
“In each of the figures, we're re-articulating a Black, queer cosmology,” Owunna explains. “Within ancient Egyptian cosmology, each of the neteru represented different aspects of the biological system and the universe. So each of the figures is also a larger spiritual map for the cultivation and elevation and divinization of Black queer individuals. We see this really as being one of the first, or the first (potentially) Black queer spiritual system and map that's being presented here through the work of the sculptures.”
The deities were thought of as natural forces that manifest simultaneously on many levels: cosmological, psychological, astrological, sociological, ecological, biological, et cetera. Of Maahus, the personification of martial qualities found within the Black LGBTQ+ community, Redd says, ”On one hand, we could think of him biologically as a symbolic representation of the immune system, signifying how the body can fight and defend itself. Psychologically, we could think of this figure as the courage that it takes to come out and live in one's authentic truth and to fight for one's existence and right to live. Socially, we could think of it as a principle of community defense, a force that you can invoke to stand up against gay bashing and discrimination.”
Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers connects the ancient to the modern, not just on the surface through contemporary aesthetics notably present in the deities' hairstyling, but also with consideration for the models used. Not only are the 16 models part of the Rainbow Serpent Collective — a network of Black LGBTQ+ artists, spiritualists, and technologists across the United States, England, and Nigeria — they’re each intentionally chosen to represent the deity that most aligns with their living.
One example is the deity Tehuti-Maa, who embodies a profound synthesis of wisdom, balance, and cosmic order, being modeled by a university dean.
“It shows how these different deity figures live within us today as well, and they get expressed through our life paths, our destinies,” says Owunna.
Redd believes the project is “also about making these African knowledge systems modern and usable in a way.”
“Sometimes you see in museums, these statues or these sculptures, and it's like, okay, this is something that's distant from me or from another time,” he says. “But I think this project shows that these archetypes and identities still do have a vibrancy in the life that can be expressed even in our everyday environments.”
Infobox: Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers. Continues through July 28. Pittsburgh Glass Center. 5472 Penn Ave., Friendship. Free. pittsburghglasscenter.org
