Games People Play: "Linguistics and Word Craft"

Art­Crawl Harlem 2024 artist in res­i­dence Aaron Cob­bet’s quilts and obelisks, cur­rent­ly on view in Colonels Row Build­ing 403, are tes­ta­ments per­son­al and col­lec­tive his­to­ries. This instal­la­tion envelops with a com­fort­ing embrace, a tes­ta­ment to Cob­bet­t’s jour­ney through the AIDS cri­sis. Quilt­ing was more than a cre­ative out­let, but a form of ther­a­py. Cob­bet­t’s incor­po­ra­tion of word quilts and visu­al puns cap­ti­vates. He plays a game of lin­guis­tic and word craft, the mean­ing of words shift upon ver­bal­iza­tion. Along­side his quilts, Cob­bet­t’s obelisks stand tall and proud, their mono­lith­ic forms sym­bol­iz­ing both pow­er and vulnerability.

Join Cob­bett for an artist talk cel­e­brat­ing Pride Month, pre­sent­ed by Art­Crawl Harlem, June 29 from 1 – 3pm.

Art­Crawl Harlem is one of the 2024 Gov­er­nors Island Arts Orga­ni­za­tions in Res­i­dence.