Wellin presents Yashua Klos: OUR LABOUR
by Emma Mae Regan ’22, Editor-in-Chief
On Feb. 12, the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art opened its Spring 2022 exhibition titled Yashua Klos: OUR LABOUR. The exhibition marks American artist Yashua Klos’s first solo museum show.
“It’s incredible. This was over three years of work finally all coming together. I was at a loss for words and I’m still processing everything. I’ve seen the gallery in FaceTimes and photos, but being in the space, it all felt so real. Additionally, this is the first time I’ve seen these works in conversation with each other (as my studio isn’t large enough to hold all my art at once), so I’m learning more about the work even now,” said Klos.
Johnson-Pote Director Tracy L. Adler served as the exhibition’s curator. Klos remembers initially meeting Adler when she was the curator of the Hunter College Art Galleries, while Klos was completing his MFA at Hunter.
“In [Yashua’s] thesis show, I just recognized that he was doing something really unique. After he graduated, we kept in touch with each other about our movements in the art world… in 2017, I initiated an acquisition of one of Yashua’s pieces for the Wellin, and when we brought it to [Hamilton], people just loved it so much,” said Adler.
OUR LABOUR was originally slated for the Spring 2021 semester, but given the health and financial pressures of COVID-19, Klos and Adler decided to push the show back a year. However, Klos and Adler found that the delay gave them both more time to think through the exhibition and Yashua more time to work on his art. “Many artists found the pandemic to be really hard, but it also gave them time in the studio that they wouldn’t normally have,” said Adler.
OUR LABOUR features a collection of Klos’s print-based and sculptural works. Klos fosters interactions and connections between human, natural and mechanical elements in his pieces in order to develop a better understanding of himself, his family and his environment. Klos’s initial inspiration for the collection came from meeting with long-lost family members.
“The best way I can describe it is getting a phone call that you won the lottery, but saying ‘I don’t remember playing a ticket.’ I did a DNA test, but it wasn’t to find my extended family. I wanted to explore the different origins of my DNA because my mother is white with Polish and German roots, and my father is Black, but I didn’t know what his roots were. After I got my DNA breakdown, I went on about life as usual. However, a year later, I got a message from someone who thought we were related, and that led to me meeting a whole side of my family that I never knew existed. Even though I was nervous, I was so overwhelmed with how much love and generosity my family showed me,” said Klos.
Klos wanted to use his love language of artmaking to pay homage to his newfound family and to make up for forty years of his absence, so he began working on pieces that were eventually included in OUR LABOUR. A mural, also titled “OUR LABOUR”, serves as the centerpiece of the exhibition and was the inspiration for the show’s title. The mural echoes the compositional elements of Mexican painter Diego Rivera’s “Detroit Industry Murals”, as Klos’s family has ties to the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, MI.
“I was going to pose all of my family members like the people in the original Rivera mural, but because of the pandemic, I couldn’t travel to do that. I decided to lean into social media and technology to further connect with my family and find images of them for the mural. I think it actually made for a better mural because my goal wasn’t to reproduce Rivera, but to give myself a visual family tree and map of these relationships, and to represent my family members in the way that they allow others to see them on social media,” said Klos.
While Klos made most of the artwork himself, “When The Parts Untangle” was a collaborative mural between Klos and seven Hamilton College students: Emma Berry ’22, Shelly Cao ’23, Maddie Hurtgen ’22, Satchel McLaughlin ’22, Irene Park ’23, Jane Taylor ’22 and Chris Tolan ’22. According to Klos, the process for making the artwork resembled an assembly line, in which each student worked on an array of different tasks such as carving wood blocks, cutting muslin and canvas, inking prints, and collaging different components of the piece.
“Working with Yashua was a very special and unique experience in that not many artists or museums facilitate direct collaboration between students and artists. Further, it’s rare that a collaborative artwork gets to actually be in a museum show alongside the rest of the artist’s works. It is exciting to have been involved in the creation of this show, and I feel lucky that I got to learn not just about technique and process from Yashua, but more about his background in general and his inspirations that allow him to produce such incredible work,” said Hurtgen.
“Getting to work with an incredible group of Hamilton peers to help Yashua construct “When the Parts Untangle” was an exciting experience. Yashua was an inspiring teacher; he generously shared his process and his story, and established an environment of teamwork and trust…I am so thankful that I got to learn from Yashua and be part of it,” said McLaughlin.
In addition to the exhibition, the WellinWorks section of the gallery has numerous workstations where museum-goers can decorate cloth with stamps that have designs from Klos’s work to create their own artworks. This WellinWorks activity is intended to emulate the process that Klos uses for making his art.
There will also be more exhibition events throughout the semester. Some professors are planning trips with their classes to the exhibition. Additionally, there is an in-person Gallery Walkthrough with Klos on Mar. 7, an in-person Roehrick Lecture with Klos on Mar. 10 and an Artists in Conversation virtual discussion with Klos and LeRonn Brooks (Associate Curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute) on Mar. 29.
Yashua Klos: OUR LABOUR is open now until June 12, 2022.
