TEXT:

Set It Off is a newly commissioned multi-site exhibition at 1708 Gallery and the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (ICA VCU). This exhibition consists of two variations of a monumental, immersive, sonic sculpture installed across both sites. Here, you encounter a square black pool made of wood and polyethylene, and at the ICA visitors are invited to enter two large-scale black cubes built of similar materials. Each structure uniquely incorporates the circulation of water from the James River.

Suspended above both sculptures are subwoofers emanating thick, pulsating compositions that create distinct environments for bass tones and infrasonic vibrations to filter through architecture and body. Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste’s compositions are made of sonic frequencies registering just below human audibility. Reorienting the sensorium, these installations provide a series of site-specific experiences for sound to be deeply felt, and set off a chain of memories affected by bass.

Since the 1980s, music has been manufactured to push the limits of car audio and sound systems. Music genres like Bounce, Miami bass, 808, breakbeat, synth bass, Baltimore club, trap, and more are built to intensify interior spaces like cars and clubs, yet the palpable qualities of bass have no reverence for the boundaries of the modern, constructed environment. Set It Off intends to shake the room, invoking the car audio system as the most recognizable transmitter of bass. 

The proximity to intrusive bass, inescapable in many U.S. cities, produces deep affinities, but also aversions and sensitivities. Some people are conditioned to enjoy the impact of excessive bass, while others are given no choice but to experience its intensity. 

Toussaint-Baptiste’s inclusion of filtered and polluted water reminds us to consider the body as a medium for environmental pollutants. Set It Off continues Toussaint-Baptiste’s work as an artist and composer committed to the affective and relational possibilities of sound through perspectives of minimalism. Coursing through Set It Off is a resistance to predetermined representations of Black American experiences, which is most often simplified as either a victim of violence and oppression or worse, as absent, static, devoid of interiority, and universal due to historical omission. Toussaint-Baptiste deploys abstracted and non-representational black squares to unfix the cultural expectations surrounding visual and sonic expressions of Blackness. 

A new publication was produced on the occasion of Set It Off. This publication takes the form of a black square, pointing towards the artist’s ongoing engagement with representations of blackness and minimalism. Since the opening of Set It Off in the fall of 2021, the publication has expanded to include contributions by artists, curators, poets, and historians. The opening reception will host a live performance by SCRAAATCH and music by DJs Sofia Lakis and Hunting Dog.

Intentionally cumulative, empty black pages within the publication hold text-inserts by Kodwo Eshun, Nikita Gale, Ebony L. Haynes, Benjamin Krusling and the exhibition’s curators Amber Esseiva and Park C. Myers. The publication also includes original scores by Toussaint-Baptiste, reference images, and quotes compiled by the artist all of which inform underlying concepts in this exhibition and his continued practice. Material and formal considerations were made to communicate the exhibition’s association with car audio culture like the addition of black window tint and the dimensions of a CD cover insert. 

Set It Off is co-curated by ICA Curator Amber Esseiva and Park C. Myers, the Royall Family Curator at 1708 Gallery. Special thanks to the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.

PROGRAM:

Pushes
Saturday October 30, 12 PM at 319 West Broad Street, 4 PM at 601 West Broad Street, and Friday June 10, 401 West Broad Street
A set of guided sound walks by Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste through Richmond's Arts District, Monroe Ward, and Jackson Ward to activate a new performative work The Pusher

. . . and Drive (Far Away)
Friday, June 10, 8 PM at the former Moore's Auto Body & Paint 401 West Broad Street
. . . and Drive (Far Away) is a mixed media sound installation and durational performance by Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste which centers on a cross-country drive from Tucson, AZ to Richmond, VA in a decommissioned police car. Utilizing custom car tint and audio elements, Toussaint-Baptiste’s performance explores Ford Police Interceptors and Crown Victorias both as sociocultural and audiovisual markers key to the sonic ecologies of the Gulf South, as well as tools of potential self-abstraction, fraught with risk, drawing attention to the oft-dangerous labor required of migration. This performance was hosted by Ballroom Marfa, Rivers Institute, New Orleans and Art Papers, Atlanta with support from Martos Gallery, New York.

PRESS:

Material Qualities of Sound: Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste Interviewed by Jareh Das, BOMB, 2022
“Set it Off” exhibition engages visitors with a sonic experience, The Commonwealth Times, 2022
The Virginia museum spotlighting overlooked histories and perspectives, The Art Newspaper, 2022