Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows, the second iteration of FRONT International, is a multivenue exhibition that embraces art as an agent of transformation, a mode of healing and a therapeutic process. The title is an homage to the 1957 poem “Two Somewhat Different Epigrams” by Langston Hughes. A tender, brutal, and provocative prayer, the poem meditates on the inseparability of joy and suffering. Expanding on Hughes’s invocation, FRONT 2022 explores how art making offers the possibility to transform and heal people—as individuals, as groups, and as a society. The triennial also demonstrates how aesthetic pleasure—sharing joy through movement, music, craft, and color—can bridge differences between people to bring them together. Finally, the exhibition suggests ways that art making can speak with power: showing people how to recognize and reimagine the invisible structures that govern contemporary life. The CMA is a presenting partner of FRONT International. As part of the multivenue exhibition, it has organized five installations throughout its galleries.
