{"id":163715,"date":"2025-08-21T12:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T12:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163715\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T12:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T12:08:10","slug":"step-into-the-fire-a-new-exhibition-ignites-the-modern-art-museum-of-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163715\/","title":{"rendered":"Step into the fire. A new exhibition ignites the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine walking into a campsite. The stars are shining, the wind is warm. But instead of singing around the fire with friends and family, you are the fire. The heat and light at the center of it all.<\/p>\n

This is the experience to which Dallas-based artist David-Jeremiah invites visitors in his new solo exhibition, The Fire This Time, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The gallery gathers 27 shaped paintings created between 2020 and 2024 that transform viewers into part of the artwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis exhibition is a road into the thinking of a contemporary artist,\u201d said curator Christopher Blay.<\/p>\n

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The exhibition spans four rooms. In the main room, visitors encounter towering black wood panels nearly 10 feet tall. The paintings are arranged in clusters, circling like a firepit. Step into the center and suddenly you\u2019re the flame, the focal point that animates the pieces. <\/p>\n

David-Jeremiah calls it an \u201cinverted performance installation\u201d where the paintings observe the guest instead of the other way around.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] about making something more than you the way you want it to be for longer than you\u2019re able to,\u201d David-Jeremiah said.<\/p>\n

\"Each<\/p>\n

Each painting takes the shape of Lamborghini hoods. David-Jeremiah explores the tension of how the sleek machine embodies both beauty and violence.<\/p>\n

Evie Marie Bishop \/ Modern Arts Museum of Fort Worth<\/p>\n

At the heart of the show are Lamborghinis. Each painting takes the shape of the Italian car\u2019s hood. As a child, David-Jeremiah was captivated by the luxury cars named after Spanish fighting bulls. As an adult, he began exploring the tension of how the sleek machine embodies both beauty and violence. It became a metaphor for human nature and identity.<\/p>\n

The exhibition\u2019s title references James Baldwin\u2019s The Fire Next Time, which wrestles with the struggles of Black masculinity in America. For David-Jeremiah, fire itself is a recurring theme acting as an ancient, primal element that represents destruction, transformation and redemption.<\/p>\n

The paintings shift from pure black to exuding strings of vivid color derived from different Lamborghini models, mimicking the glow of an active fire. Their surfaces are layered, scraped and even burned away the deeper into the gallery guests move. One piece sheds gray paint like cooling ash, while another is entirely covered in red erupting with the brightness of fire at full blaze. The progression suggests both the life cycle of flames and the layered experience of identity. <\/p>\n

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Blay says David-Jeremiah also draws from James Baldwin\u2019s 1971 conversation with the late poet Nikki Giovanni, which explored race, love and survival under white supremacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor David-Jeremiah, going through the fire means experiencing these things in the most honest and real ways in order to get to the healing that everyone talks about and no one does anything about,\u201d Blay said.<\/p>\n

The exhibition also resonates with works from the Modern\u2019s permanent collection. The first room features a John Chamberlain sculpture made of twisted car parts that echoes David-Jeremiah\u2019s use of Lamborghini hoods. Anselm Kiefer\u2019s Quaternity, with its burning flames contained in a pentagram, mirrors the artist\u2019s use of fire and geometric form as symbols of transformation. And a classic Mark Rothko painting recalls the spiritual weight of Rothko\u2019s Houston chapel, an echo of David-Jeremiah\u2019s own use of geometry.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The paintings shift from pure black to exuding strings of vivid color derived from different Lamborghini models, mimicking the glow of an active fire<\/p>\n

Evie Marie Bishop \/ Modern Arts Museum of Fort Worth<\/p>\n

Dustin Van Orne, the museum\u2019s manager of strategic marketing and visitors\u2019 service, said the exhibition reflects how contemporary art can spark curiosity both locally and globally \u2013 something the museum is always looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s immersive. It\u2019s one of those kinds of exhibitions that you have to be in to see. The work. The installation, the way that the work envelops you, it\u2019s just such a remarkable space,\u201d Van Orne said.<\/p>\n

The Fire This Time is on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth through Nov. 2.<\/p>\n

Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.<\/p>\n

This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, Communities Foundation of Texas, The University of Texas at Dallas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access\u2019 journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine walking into a campsite. The stars are shining, the wind is warm. But instead of singing around…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,347,2677,11321,7711,7371,7372,8160,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-163715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-artists","11":"tag-arts-entertainment","12":"tag-arts-access","13":"tag-fort-worth","14":"tag-fortworth","15":"tag-museums","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-tx","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115066680775733942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}