Nari Ward: Home of the Brave 2022 - 2023

The exhibition Nari Ward: Home of the Brave opened at the Vilcek Foundation in May 2022 and remained on view through March 2023. Curated by Rick Kinsel, the exhibition included seven mixed-media sculptures and installations by the artist, spanning from 2006 to 2022.

Nari Ward’s work is personal and political. Born in Jamaica’s St. Andrew Parish, the artist grew up in Jamaica until the age of 12, when he and his family immigrated to the United States, settling in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Ward uses his artwork to reflect and prompt dialogue on the experience of being Black and being an immigrant, and the history of race and power in the United States.

Art historian and curator Erica Moiah James contributed the exhibition essay for Nari Ward: Home of the Brave. An assistant professor of African, Black, and Caribbean art at the University of Miami, James previously wrote on Ward’s work for Nari Ward: Sun Splashed; in that volume, she contextualized Ward’s work within the Caribbean diaspora, noting “complex relations and subject reformation at the heart of Caribbean modernities are mechanisms that are fundamental to the artist’s thinking, formal vocabulary, and aesthetic production.”

The Vilcek Foundation produced a limited-edition publication to extend the impact of the exhibition Nari Ward: Home of the Brave. Developed in partnership with Ward and the team at the AHOY branding and design studios, the book was released in a numbered run of 1,000 on February 16, 2023.

“With AHOY principals Connie Koch and Denise Sommer, we developed typographic and printing details for the book inspired by the graphic security features on U.S. passports and money,” says Kinsel. “The juxtaposition of themes—national defense and artistic ingenuity—is one that resonates through Nari’s work.”

The book is scaled to the size of a Jamaican passport in 1975—the year when Ward immigrated to the United States. The publication includes an exclusive discussion between Kinsel and Ward exploring the experiences and processes that shaped Ward’s approach to the works included in Home of the Brave. The book also includes detailed photographs and descriptions of Ward’s artworks Copper II, G.O.A.T. (2017), TIRED G.O.A.T. (2017), American Flag Banner (2022), Lazarus (2019), Tumblehood (2015), Chrysalis (2016), and Googly Eyes Defender (2006).