RASHAUN RUCKER

RELIEF FROM THE HEAT

NOVEMBER 5, 2022 – MARCH 25, 2023

At the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit

Relief From the Heat presents Detroit-based artist Rashaun Rucker’s ruminations on intergenerational identity and kinship sustained within the Black Church. Born and raised in the American South, Rucker reminisces on the church as a space for communal gathering, familial intimacy, and identity development. Nationally recognized for his printmaking and draftsman work, this exhibition is a return to Rucker’s roots as a photojournalist, the career that brought him to the Midwest via a job at the Detroit Free Press. Reflecting on his journey as a creative, Rucker expands the medium of documentary photography and drawing to present an installation of brand new multi-medium works. Relief From the Heat is a nod to the aunties, uncles, and cousins who created a village that grew Rucker into the artist he is today.

Rejoice! A Relief

Exhibition essay By Cherise Morris

Who knew four walls could be a shepherd?

Who knew one place could make a shout, a wail and a cackle all seem sacred?

Who knew you could receive your crown before you got your wings?

Who knew such humble dwellings could open us to the infinite nature of our souls?

The Black church was our headquarters, a place where we studied the good word and planned the marches,
where we journeyed our troubles and found relief,
where we spoke our righteous indignation, our sacred discontent and met the prodigal of our blessing,
where we shared our human fallibility and transcended all worries of flesh and bone .

The Black church, four walls, a humble servant, where we grew as we grieved.

Rejoice! There is life beyond death.
Rejoice! There is holiness in this living.
Rejoice! The promised land can be, if only for a moment,
right here on earth,
in this church
where mamas brought their babies to be baptized
and sinners with bowed heads came to be reborn.

There was heaven, if only for moment,
in the clapping of hands, the tapping of fans, the tremble of voices edging up to catch the spirit,
Holy Ghost.
in the praise be to God in all God’s glory,
in these pews where the good folks sang songs and read psalms,
where the redeemer was also the redeemed.

In these four walls, a humble servant,
In these four walls, leave your burdens at the door,
In these four walls, there was a feeling we’d longed for.

In these four walls,
there was freedom
in coming home.

Put on your finest clothes,
the higher the hat the closer to God's door,
wear that crown.

If we were made in God’s image,
we ought to reflect the holiness within.

In the church on each corner,
was a feast to follow each famine,
deliverance at the edge of each crisis,
and if it is as the good book says,
the last shall be first,
then we will inherit this earth.

Within these four walls we made a universe unto our own,
between red velvet carpet and cedar pews, a sanctuary to hold the pain and carry the joy of people
who had never been afforded rest, but somehow always found relief,
a land of milk and honey where Black women, the most disrespected, the most unprotected, the
most neglected, took the reins.

Though we spoke of angels up above, we always knew the divine walked among us.
If the meek shall inherit the earth, our glory is not only promised, but in process.

In these four walls, a haven,
a space of survival and a site of resistance,
an arena to bear our burdens and a theater to transcend all limitations,
a home to remember God’s glory is always alive within.

Our healing,
our communion,
our saving grace,
was right here with each other in these four walls.

Rejoice! If heaven was our final destination,
then we ought to know “a better place” was also possible here on earth.

In this freedom,
a release,
a relief.