SAY IT LOUD, BY SATCH HOYT

Satch Hoyt employs various media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation that often incorporates sound. Also an accomplished musician and composer, he foregrounds musicality and aurality in his visual art. Using music as a lens, he investigates issues the ways in which people transform their environments, creatively reusing existing materials.

Hoyt is particularly interested in the African Diaspora and its complex international consequences. With Say It Loud (2004), he explores its cultural and political impact, arranging some 500 books on subjects related to black history in a podium-shaped stack arranged around a stepladder. Accompanying the installation is a recording of the chorus from James Brown’s “Say It Loud! I’m Black and I’m Proud!,” altered to mute the word “black.” Perched atop the stack is a microphone inviting viewers to consider the selective silencing of black voices, and to step up and perform their own concept of pride. Engaging viewers as both participants and collaborators, Hoyt underscores the open-endedness of black identity and empowerment.