ARTISTS
Pigeonhole: The Life And Work Of Bobby Alam
Knockdown Center is pleased to present Pigeonhole: The Life and Work of Bobby Alam, a new exhibition by Priyanka Dasgupta and Chad Marshall. Pigeonhole is a multidisciplinary portrait of Bahauddin 鈥淏obby鈥� Alam, a Bengali peddler and sailor and who arrived in the United States in 1918 and lived as a Black jazz musician in New York and New Orleans. The exhibition memorializes Alam鈥檚 career and explores his personal navigation of an especially precarious period in American history, prompting a reflection on the complexities of racial passing as a means for marginalized people to circumvent violence.
Alam鈥檚 identity is a composite of historical realities and imagined truths, culled from the unwritten experiences of Bengali sailors who passed as Black in the early twentieth century by settling into communities of color in order to bypass anti-Asian immigration laws in the United States at the time. The artists deploy these histories to bring to light the ways in which passing can function as a strategy for survival.
The installation portrays Alam鈥檚 dressing room, rehearsal space, and performance stage in the kind of juke joint where he would have spent his evenings constructing and performing his adopted identity. Objects within the installation highlight Alam鈥檚 life and career as a musician: a zoot suit embellished with Indian kantha style embroidery, old handbills and concert posters, musical compositions, video documentation from Alam鈥檚 rehearsals, and private recordings. Clues within each of these objects reveal, upon close reading, the staged and dual nature of Alam鈥檚 identity, which subtly trespasses the lines between reality and fiction.
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Knockdown Center is pleased to present Pigeonhole: The Life and Work of Bobby Alam, a new exhibition by Priyanka Dasgupta and Chad Marshall. Pigeonhole is a multidisciplinary portrait of Bahauddin 鈥淏obby鈥� Alam, a Bengali peddler and sailor and who arrived in the United States in 1918 and lived as a Black jazz musician in New York and New Orleans. The exhibition memorializes Alam鈥檚 career and explores his personal navigation of an especially precarious period in American history, prompting a reflection on the complexities of racial passing as a means for marginalized people to circumvent violence.
Alam鈥檚 identity is a composite of historical realities and imagined truths, culled from the unwritten experiences of Bengali sailors who passed as Black in the early twentieth century by settling into communities of color in order to bypass anti-Asian immigration laws in the United States at the time. The artists deploy these histories to bring to light the ways in which passing can function as a strategy for survival.
The installation portrays Alam鈥檚 dressing room, rehearsal space, and performance stage in the kind of juke joint where he would have spent his evenings constructing and performing his adopted identity. Objects within the installation highlight Alam鈥檚 life and career as a musician: a zoot suit embellished with Indian kantha style embroidery, old handbills and concert posters, musical compositions, video documentation from Alam鈥檚 rehearsals, and private recordings. Clues within each of these objects reveal, upon close reading, the staged and dual nature of Alam鈥檚 identity, which subtly trespasses the lines between reality and fiction.
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