Professor Lyndon Barrois Jr. has a two-person exhibition titled “Mercantile” with Addoley Dzegede at Sharp projects in Copenhagen, Denmark. The exhibition is on view June 10 through July 8.
Deviating from their collaborative entity LAB:D, “Mercantile” explores individual responses to a common subject. For this project, the color blue forms the primary bridge, as each ruminates on different reference points along the hue’s spectrum. Dzegede’s primary point of departure is the history of indigo, reimagining forms found while researching the history of the dye’s processing and distribution. On the flipside, Barrois Jr. references the contemporary apparatus of the toner printer to offer a dialogue between images and the mechanisms that enable their production and distribution. Both artists employ mimicry and reproduction to consider the underlying structures and belief systems of a given society. They consider the relationship between raw materials and their use-value, and how forms and ideas evolve over time, all while reminding us of the multitudinal cultural significance that blue weaves through it all.