Light the Barricades

About The Artists

For over a decade, Candy Chang and James A. Reeves have collaborated on internationally recognized projects that connect storytelling with contemporary rituals for self-reflection. They both grew up without any kind of faith or ritual in their lives. After reckoning with the trials of life and the dark alleys of the mind—death, depression, addiction, anxiety—they began to channel these concerns into their work, pursuing philosophy, psychology, and contemplative practices, both in their daily lives as well as their art-making practice. Their projects are inspired by a range of classical and contemporary rituals which feel increasingly resonant in our distracted age, from the devotional images of Catholicism to the ancient I Ching.

Their work has been described as “a wake-up call in our fast-paced digital age” (Ad Age), a “remarkably poignant, accessible, and affecting brand of art” (Pelican Bomb) with writing that offers a “unique point of view that is quirky, beautiful, disturbing, humorous, and at times unexpectedly and achingly moving” (Photo Life). Their most recent collaborative work, A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful, functioned as a year-long catalogue of the ways in which we relate to the uncertainty of tomorrow and collected over 50,000 anxieties and hopes at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City in 2018.