Joel Swanson: I Know You Are But What Am I
April 12-22, 2025
Pop-up exhibition curated by Cortney Lane Stell.
About I Know You Are But What Am I
An early alumnus of RedLine’s Artist Residency, Joel Swanson returns with a thought-provoking and personal exploration of language and identity.
Through his innovative use of semiotics and symbolism, Swanson reflects on his experiences as a queer man, while exploring broader societal issues of marginalization.
Through neon text, graphic works, and sculptural interventions, Swanson investigates how language can be a tool of both oppression and empowerment.
Swanson’s practice explores the tension between abstraction and personal history, inviting viewers to deconstruct signs and symbols in ways that challenge dominant cultural narratives.
Through this exhibition, Swanson encourages us to consider the fluidity of identity and the transformative potential of art in reframing the labels that society imposes upon us.
“Swanson’s work invites us to confront the powerful ways language
shapes our understanding of identity and societal structures. By recontextualizing popular culture and personal history, his work creates space for reflection on otherness, power, and identity. This exhibition is not only an intimate reflection on his personal experiences, but an opportunity for the viewer to consider how language itself is used to both define and divide.”
About Joel Swanson
Joel Swanson is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the complex relationships between language, materiality, and identity. His work takes many forms—from monumental text-based sculpture to digital animations of textual ephemera—as he invites viewers to question the seemingly neutral systems of language that invisibly structure our understanding of ourselves and others.
His recent work examines the material culture of his early education, investigating the pedagogical objects and tools that shaped his formative relationship with language. While grounded in conceptual art traditions, Swanson subverts the movement's characteristic austerity through playful and excessive interventions, creating works that are simultaneously intellectual and deeply personal, analytical and absurd.
Swanson's work has been exhibited at venues including the MSU Broad Art Museum, the Power Plant in Toronto, Ireland's Glucksman Museum, and the 57th Venice Biennale (official satellite exhibition). His accomplishments include a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and artist residencies at La Napoule Art Foundation, HANGAR - Centro de Investigação Artística, the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, and RedLine Contemporary Art Center. He is a Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum Fellow and his work is featured in the Electronic Literature Organization's 4th Anthology. Swanson received his MFA from the University of California, San Diego, and is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
About the Curator
Cortney Lane Stell is the Executive Director + Chief Curator of Black Cube, a nomadic contemporary art museum based in Denver, Colorado. Stell recently served on Denver’s Commission on Cultural Affairs, as appointed by the mayor. She has held independent curatorial practice since 2006, which has included curating numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally for museums, university galleries, biennials and art events.
Stemming from a philosophical interest in art as communication, Stell has organized exhibitions that focus on artworks experimental in both conceptual and material nature, including exhibitions with artists such as Liam Gillick, Cyprien Gaillard, Daniel Arsham, and Shirley Tse. In her role as the Executive Director + Chief Curator of Black Cube she has art directed dozens of site-specific artworks including works by SANGREE, Adriana Corral, Rindon Johnson, and Jennifer Ling Datchuk—to name a few.
Stell holds a MA from the European Graduate School in Switzerland, where she is also a PhD candidate in Media Communications.
Support
PARDON and FirstBank generously support the exhibition.
