Julian V.L. Gaines confronts Black experience in 'Fly in the Sugar Bowl'

Cristin Tierney Gallery presents Fly in the Sugar Bowl, Julian V.L. Gaines's first solo show with the gallery, featuring new and recent works in painting, sculpture, and assemblage. The exhibition examines tensions between Black experience and systemic inequality in the United States. Its title draws from Thomas J. Lax's essay in Among Others: Blackness at MoMA (2019), Greg Tate's Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992), and the folk song “Skip to My Lou.” The metaphor of a fly in a sugar bowl—a dark speck against white—represents simultaneous insider and outsider status, highlighting exclusion and exploitation of Black accomplishment in a white-dominant society.