Loring Cornish: In Each Other’s Shoes

An image of one of Loring Cornish’s artworks. The art contains tiles in various shades of beige, green, blue, teal, and orange in stripes in the background. On it is a tiled six-pointed, Jewish star.

Loring Cornish: In Each Other’s Shoes

Date

Feb 13 2011 - Sep 15 2011
, 8AM- 6PM

Curated by JMM on view February 13, 2011- September 15, 2011

As a part of the Jewish Museum of Maryland’s celebration of its 50th anniversary year, In Each Other’s Shoes explicitly acknowledged the shared Jewish and African-american heritage of the Lloyd Street neighborhood.

Cornish used his own experiences to depict the pain and pride of African Americans and his moral imagination to envision similar feelings in the Jewish community.

Loring Cornish is fast becoming a Baltimore art star, best known for his exquisitely tiled home and studio on Parkwood Avenue. This exhibition presents a new dimension in his work, stemming from his decision to inject a social message into his art.

Two years ago, while completing a civil rights-themed exhibition for Morgan State University, Cornish met a Jewish couple and was touched by their friendship. Suddenly, he says, “Everything changed. I realized I could not use my art to talk about the struggles of only one community. I was struck by the connections between the struggles of Jews and Blacks.”

Cornish took the civil rights mosaics he had already created, “flipped them over,” and began making related pieces on the back, using Jewish motifs. He paired an abstract image of a lynching with the word GHETTO. He backed Target, a mosaic combining images of Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy, with the word SHALOM. For the reverse of another work featuring photos of the assassinated leaders he featured the word LIFE in Hebrew and English.

The result is In Each Other’s Shoes, a body of work in which Cornish uses his own experiences to depict the pain and pride of African Americans and his moral imagination to envision similar feelings in another community.  Through this exhibition, he invites us to do the same.

All work on exhibit courtesy of the artist.

Photos of Exhibit (by Will Kirk)

Loring Cornish: In Each Other’s Shoes was made possible with generous support from:

David and Barbara B. Hirschhorn Foundation
Maryland State Arts Council
Cherie Vogelstein Weiner and Eric Weiner
HEBROS
Janine and Robert Frier
Ellen and Paul Saval
Robbey and Kevin Apperson

Help support exhibits, programs, and projects like this at the Jewish Museum of Maryland by making a gift online today!

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