Venus Rising, 2024
Painted aluminum (cast bed sheets and dining plates)
108 x 51 x12 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Venus Rising, 2024
Painted aluminum (cast bed sheets and dining plates)
108 x 51 x12 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Venus Rising, 2024
Painted aluminum (cast bed sheets and dining plates)
108 x 51 x12 inches
Courtesy of the artist


Photo ©Philippe Cheng

Cheryl R. Riley and Wharton Esherick

Venus Rising

If Wharton Esherick was the “alpha” figure of the studio craft movement, then Cheryl R. Riley is its “omega”, clearly the last great arrival into the scene as it was transitioning into a more interdisciplinary art and design scene.

In its series of “full circle” interventions into LongHouse’s domestic space and collections, LongHouse welcomes Cheryl R. Riley bringing her work and studio collections into dialogue with the works of Wharton Esherick. Jack Lenor Larsen (1927-2020) knew both and collected their works, making this exhibition all the more pertinent and relevant to LongHouse today. Larsen actively and intentionally gathered artworks and artifacts on his vast global travels and curated his spaces again and again. He wished for this practice of place shifting to continue, thus inspiring an annual exhibition of rearrangements and reinvestigations; an act of relevance, not reverence.

Riley’s work is represented by loans from the artist herself. Riley is many things: artist and designer, curator and activist, sharp-eyed analyst of contemporary culture and passionate advocate for Black diasporic history. The exhibition showcases all the facets of her wide-ranging creativity. Through this cross-generational conversation, LongHouse offers visitors a new lens into its important collections, while also creating a platform for this vital and proficient maker, with provocative connections to the counterpart of Esherick and the vast collection of Esherick works at LongHouse.

The exhibition was conceived and guided by Glenn Adamson, LongHouse Curator-at-Large, with curatorial assistance from Carrie Rebora Barratt.

Supported by a generous grant from Barbara Tober and the Acronym Foundation