New York-based artist Steve Locke’s exhibition the fire next time is a meditation on uniquely American forms of violence directed at Black and queer people. In his interdisciplinary practice, Locke engages issues of identity, desire, race, violence, and memory, revealing as much tenderness and humor as he does brutality. Over the course of his decades-long career, Locke has largely worked in painting. Primarily concerned with how we ascribe meaning to portraiture while exploring the relationships between and among men, in recent years Locke has introduced a more personal, political, and critical engagement with histories of racism and anti-Blackness, the Western canon of art history, and American society. the fire next time takes its title from a book by James Baldwin, first published in 1963 amid the growing civil rights movement. Locke’s exhibition includes a MASS MoCA-commissioned sculptural installation; a new series of freestanding paintings; #Killers (2017-ongoing), a series of hand-drawn portraits of American mass murderers and accused or acquitted killers; and a data-driven site-specific installation, A Partial List of Unarmed African-Americans Who Were Killed By Police or Who Died in Police Custody During My Sabbatical from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 2014-2015 (2016), among other new and recent works.
Steve Locke (b.1963) was born in Cleveland, OH and lives and works in the Hudson Valley, NY. Spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, Locke’s practice critically engages with the Western canon to interrogate the connections between desire, identity, and violence. Locke received his MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2001. Extending his commitment to a painting practice, he began to seek alternative ways to amplify public engagement around his art, partnering with institutions, municipalities, and even the US Postal Service to reach new audiences.
Locke’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, includingthe daily practice of painting, Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA (2022); in the name of love, The Gallatin Galleries, New York University, NY (2019); Three Deliberate Grays for Freddie (A Memorial for Freddie Gray), curated by Pieranna Cavalchini, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA (2018); Love Letter to a Library, Boston Public Library, MA (2018); The School of Love, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, MA (2018); there is no one left to blame, curated by Helen Molesworth, Museum of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (2013), traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI (2014); and Rapture, curated by Erin Dziedzic, Hall Street Gallery, Savannah College of Art and Design, GA (2008). He has participated in many group exhibitions, including Feedback, curated by Helen Molesworth, The School, Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, NY (2021); The BIG Picture: Giant Photographs and Powerful Portfolios, Fitchburg Art Museum, MA (2020); and Recruiting for Utopia: Print and the Imagination, Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA (2020). Locke’s work is in the collections of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, NC; Brooklyn Academy of Music, NY; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; and Tufts University Art Galleries, Medford, MA. He is the recipient of many grants and awards, including the Rappaport Prize from the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2022); Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2020); Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2014); LEF Contemporary Work Fund Grant (2009); and Art Matters Foundation Award (2007).
More information on Steve Locke: the fire next time and Steve Locke
MASS MoCA
1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247
August 3, 2024–November 16, 2025
