Since her music debut with the album ‘Solo Star,’ Solange Knowles has carved her own lane that transcends multiple disciplines of art: music, visual art, film, design, and performance art. Her art is softly rooted in Black identity and empowerment.
Even as the multidisciplinary artist is working on a new album that her fans eagerly await after five years. In May this year, the eclectic artist announced that an opera album is in the works, as she revealed in ‘Chanel and Wax Poetics.’
Here are some of the ways she has surprised us through her avant-garde approach to art.
‘Shakersss.mov’ film
She directed and self-documented this short film, which was showcased at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles from February 16 to May 4 for the ‘American Gurl: home—land’ exhibition.
The film centres on the spiritual significance of water. The Shakersss.mov website describes the eight-minute film as Solange’s “diaristic, devotional, inward gaze, presenting the film as a moving liturgy of praise expressed through reverence for self, God, and the exalted mother Yemaya.”
She designed glassware
In June 2023, Solange released her own collection titled ‘Small Matter: Form Glassware 001,’ which she designed through Saint Heron, an arts company she founded in 2013.
The handmade glasses, which have a significant element of vintage aesthetics, were stocked on the shelves of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Design Store.
“Produced by glassblower Jason McDonald, the handblown glassware reveals the sentience of household objects through the landscape of Black domesticity,” read a statement from Saint Heron social media pages.
Her performance artworks
In 2018, Solange released a new video of a performance at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The piece, titled ‘Metatronia (Metatron’s Cube),’ features more than 50 dancers showcased her love for architectural forms as they move in around them. This performance was commissioned by the Hammer Museum and Red Bell Music Academy, and it examines body, movement, and space.
Besides this, Solange has staged immersive performances at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Getty Centre in Los Angeles, and the Venice Biennale.
‘The Soul of Nation’ exhibition
Solange created a digital interactive piece titled ‘Seventy States’ for the London Tate Modern’s ‘Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power’ exhibition. This piece neatly ties to her thematic advocacy of the Black people in her music, exploring performance concepts for her songs, ‘Cranes in the Sky’ and ‘Don’t Touch My Hair.’
“I wanted to create a specific scenography through movement and landscape to communicate my states of process through this record; I decided to do this through a visual language,” she said in a statement as reported by Daze.
Saint Heron community library
Solange continues to utilise her brainchild, Saint Heron, to create, document, and archive Black identity and history for future generations. Through Saint Heron’s ‘Here and Now,’ she preserves a digital and physical library dedicated to Black literature, with some of the works including essays, books, and photography.