Image: The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C
Kyle Hackett’s painting ‘After Return Investment’ is featured in ‘Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise,’ a juried exhibition of contemporary artists highlighted by The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The work revisits Hackett’s own 2014 painting ‘After Brown,’ which references an iconic photograph of the abolitionist John Brown.
Described by Hackett as a self-portrait viewed from behind, ‘After Return Investment’ focuses on the reverse of a painting rather than its frontal image. The new work reimagines the backside of ‘After Brown,’ turning the physical support and hidden surface of the earlier picture into the subject of a subsequent self-portrait.
In an artist statement included in The Phillips Collection’s August 25 newsletter, Hackett describes the work as “a self-portrait viewed from behind” and says that it “reimagines the backside” of the 2014 painting. The statement identifies ‘After Brown’ as a work that originally referenced the photograph of John Brown, the abolitionist whose image provides the historical point of departure for the earlier painting.
That movement from an image of a historical figure to the back of a painting introduces a second layer of reflection. Rather than repeating the original reference, ‘After Return Investment’ is presented as a return to the object that carried it. The work’s stated structure places Hackett’s own artistic process alongside the historical subject already embedded in ‘After Brown,’ while keeping the new image centered on the artist’s self-representation.
‘Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise’ remains on view through September 20, according to the Phillips communication. The exhibition brings together Hackett with Joey Mánlapaz, Abdulrahman Naanseh, Se Jong Cho, Bria Sterling-Wilson and Sharon Cheuk Wun Lee. The newsletter features interviews and studio-related material connected to the participating artists, including Mánlapaz’s photorealistic paintings of Washington, Naanseh’s non-traditional calligraphy, Cho’s ‘Tile Mountain,’ Sterling-Wilson’s ‘The Get Together’ and Lee’s ‘Afterimage: Borrowed Flora.’
The exhibition is presented within the wider program of The Phillips Collection, which describes itself as a Washington, D.C., museum open Tuesday through Sunday. The institution’s newsletter also notes that its holdings include nearly 6,000 acquired works accumulated over a 100-year history. Hackett’s ‘After Return Investment’ is documented in the exhibition’s opening coverage alongside the other artists’ works, with the show scheduled to remain on view through September 20.
