Christopher Myers: Please Trouble, Carry Me

Please Trouble, Carry Me features works demonstrating the scope of Myers' creative process, including the installation, Let The Mermaids Flirt with Me, which premiered at Art Basel Miami in 2022 and is on loan from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. The installation features a suite of stained-glass paintings in lightboxes, which creates an atmospheric devotional space for Myers' deeply personal and poetic project. It is a visual exploration of the varied mythological, spiritual, and historical relationships between Black bodies, diaspora, and water.

Myers pulls from a wide range of sources – from the stories of water deities like the African water spirit, Mami Wata (Mother Water) and the South Carolina low-country cymbees, whose name is derived from the word simbi (plural, bisimbi), Central and West African water spirits. He is also inspired by the poetry of Langston Hughes and the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Christopher Myers (b. 1974, New York City) is a Brooklyn-based artist and writer whose work across disciplines is rooted in storytelling. Myers delves into the past to build narratives that speak to the slippages between history and mythology. His diverse practice spans textiles, performance, film, and sculptural objects, often created in collaboration with artisans from around the globe. He has worked around the world with traditional shadow puppet makers in Jogjakarta, conceptual video artists in Ho Chi Minh City, young musicians in New Orleans, woodcarvers in Accra, weavers in Luxor, textile printers in Copenhagen, and more.

Myers earned his B.A. in Art-Semiotics and American Civilization with focus on race and culture from Brown University in 1995 and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Studio Program in 1996. His work has been exhibited internationally including MoMA PS1; Art Institute of Chicago; The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, Mexico; Akron Art Museum; Contrast Gallery, Shanghai; Goethe-Institut, Accra; Kigali Genocide Memorial Center, Rwanda; San Art, Ho Chi Minh City; and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

His work is included in the permanent collections of institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mead Art Museum (Amherst, MA), the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, Portland, OR.

Photo credit: In-Situ Portrait: Courtesy the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Photo by Tricia Zigmund.

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