TT The River Won’t Stop (or, A Stomping Horse)

Tony Cokes works across video essays, posters, and billboards, layering found text over monochromatic color fields, often accompanied by sampled soundtracks. His postminimalist text-based and audio works respond to the hypervisibility of mediatized violence, especially against racialized communities. TT The River Won’t Stop (or, A Stomping Horse) turns to Tina Turner, the global superstar whose iconic musical career began in St. Louis. Inside the historic sanctuary at Antioch Baptist Church, Cokes presents a moving-image and sound installation composed from Turner’s quotes and song lyrics. Turner attended nearby Sumner High School in the 1950s and is an icon of Black excellence from The Ville neighborhood. Her life defies simple categorization, and her works are celebrated worldwide as anthems of compassion, collective action, and refusal of dependency on external salvation.

An additional animation is presented outdoors at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and a series of billboards and signs is installed along the route connecting the two sites.

Courtesy of the artist; Greene Naftali, New York; Felix Gaudlitz, Vienna; and Hoffman Donahue, Los Angeles & New York.

With support from The Hearthland Foundation.