In preparing her new exhibition outside the Paramount Theater in downtown Charlottesville, artist Kori Price had the opportunity to reflect on what is ephemeral and what endures. She’s making room for others to do the same.
The Culpeper native's “Walking Dualities,” which opened Tuesday as the inaugural exhibition of Paramount's “Third Street Box Office Project,” depicts a progression of apparition-like figures drifting past the theater entrance that black patrons used during the segregation era to watch movies and shows from the auditorium balcony without being seen by white patrons below.
Then as now, Price noted, countless passersby passed the Paramount without even noticing the portal that allowed viewers to rise above the daily indignities they faced and enter the restorative realm of art.
“The first thing I noticed was the number of people walking past the [Third Street] “I never realize it,” said Price, a founding member of the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective and current president. “I walk by and I don’t pay attention to it. People are walking to meetings, to lunches, to Fleurie and they’re looking at their phones.”
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In preparation for her installation, Price spent time with historians from Monticello, Montpelier and other historic sites to learn about the daily lives of the enslaved workers and their descendants who built much of the local infrastructure and landmarks that even pedestrians take for granted. “I’ve been thinking a lot about ancestors and the people who came before us,” she said.
Price came away amazed by the fingerprints she saw on the bricks of Monticello, which confirm, generations later, the unmistakable presence of the hard-working humans who shaped them.
“There are places in Monticello where you can see the fingerprints of the people who made these bricks,” which raises other questions, Price said. “Who cut the wood and made the furniture? Who built what we walk on and what we pass by?”
As presidential residences do, Paramount has examined its past.
Art offers people from all walks of life a way to look more closely at facts and feelings to help them process the presence of the wonderful and the terrible at the same time.
Being willing to confront dualities can help one understand “how to live with this dual nature of these places that were dangerous places,” Price said.
“I think it’s really important for us to have spaces to visit and learn about how things were different,” Price said, adding that it’s also important to take stock of what hasn’t changed.
“I didn’t have a lot of time to think about putting this show together. I was always in a hurry,” Price said. “I tend to think about it after I see the work on display. What I want to think about now is that I haven’t forgotten what Black people have done so that I can be one of three artists in the city working on this project.”
Price said she thinks about the people on whose shoulders she will stand in 2024 as a college graduate who will be able to choose her profession, live her life and practice her art. She pays tribute to previous generations of Black men and women “who endured, who fought to make the world a better place. I haven’t forgotten that.” They may have been invisible to other patrons rushing to their seats, but in Price’s work, they are seen and acknowledged.
A detail from “Walking Dualities,” a new photography exhibit by Culpeper native Kori Price at the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville that explores the site’s history during segregation.
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Price's parents grew up during segregation and discovered over time how slowly things would change, even after desegregation was implemented.
“Integration doesn’t mean they’ve been accepted, so I don’t lose sight of how recent the story is,” Price said.
The ephemeral and the eternal continue their dialogue, giving way along the way to irony and wonders full of meaning. And as any music lover who has listened to a concert from the balcony of the Paramount can attest, the seductive acoustics of this space reward the climb.
“It’s the duality of the title: You’re separated, but you have one of the best seats in the room,” Price said. “It’s complicated. It’s important to give people the space to think about that.”
“Walking Dualities” will be on view through July 23. Next up is Tobiah Mundt’s “Shadows of the Past,” which will be on view from July 30 through August 20, and Nick Brinen’s “Ascending Light,” which will be on view from August 27 through September 17.
