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8 WHAT'S UP! MARCH 20-26, 2022 FEATURE 'The Dirty South' APRIL WALLACE NWA Democrat-Gazette Y ou're swimming through water clear enough to see the green, brown and red branches and vines of plant life that inhabit it. It's loud in the way that water can be, like a white noise of nature, but there are no voices. You come up briefly for air, passing through bubbles and ripples as you push through and carry on down the river. At least, that's what it feels like as you're watching Allison Janae Hamilton's "Wacissa," a single-channel video that is the first thing you see when you walk into "The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse," a new exhibit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. It celebrates 100 years of Southern Black culture. Hamilton dragged her video camera through the Wacissa River in north Florida, an area that was part of the state's Slave Canal, to give imagery to its history. Enslaved workers dug miles of navigable channels to transport products of the cotton industry. Sound and music play a strong role in "The Dirty South," in addition to the visual art and material objects that you might expect, such as paintings, photographs and sculptures. "Sonic Impulse" refers to the many audio components that pull guests from one part of the exhibit to the next, says Alejo Benedetti, associate curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges and in-house curator of "The Dirty South." The exhibit opened to the public on March 12 and will be on view through July 25. It explores themes of "Southern Landscape" — both the natural and man-made; "Sinners and Saints," a religious and spiritual exploration; as well as "Black Corporality," or the Black body in terms of its holding tradition and knowledge. Music crops up in the "Sinners and Saints" section through Jason Moran's "STAGED: Slugs' Saloon," a reconstruction of Slugs' Saloon, an important free jazz venue in New York City's East Village. The space includes a drum set, bass, piano, chair and jukebox. Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator of "The Dirty South," who is the Sydney and Frances Lewis family curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, said she believed it belonged in the "Sinners and Saints" section since music can be the connector of the physical and spiritual. At the beginning of the "Black Corporality" section is a video loud and lively enough to hear from next door and make you wonder what's coming. Rashaad Newsome's "King of Arms" is framed by theatrical style curtains and has a gigantic golden statue that looks like a flatbill hat and adorned crown in one. On the screen is a work not unlike a music video with a marching band, color guard and a masked dancer who seems to be performing for a king. The single-channel video "conjures the grand traditions of procession and theater … and explores themes of the Black body, ornamentation and heraldic emblems from Mardi Gras to hip-hop to voguing." Another area of the exhibit has a few Crystal Bridges celebrates 100 years of Southern Black culture Jivette De Jesus looks at Jason Moran's "STAGED: Slugs' Saloon," a reconstruction of Slugs' Saloon, an important free jazz venue in New York City's East Village. The space includes a drum set, bass, piano, chair and jukebox and is part of "The Dirty South" on exhibit at Crystal Bridges through July 25. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Spencer Tirey)