Take a closer look at artist Pope.L’s newest exhibition

After nearly a full year of closure, the University of Chicago's Neubauer Collegium will reopen its gallery to the public-doing so with a new exhibition from acclaimed artist Pope.L. On display through May 16,  My Kingdom for a Title  features recent work by Pope.L, a scholar in UChicago's Department of Visual Arts. The show contains allusions to the COVID-19 crisis with a degree of directness that is unusual in Pope.L's work, which is often elusive and ambiguous. Appointments to visit the gallery will begin March 9 , with special hours and new visitor policies developed by the University of Chicago to protect the health of guests and staff. Visitors will enter an immersive installation under a cloud of masks, objects that have come to symbolize the pandemic. An arrangement of medicine cabinets with mirrored doors left ajar invite visitors to peek inside for a closer look at the works contained within. The subtle play of prompts and references will animate the gallery as a space where notions of access-to art, to meaning, to health care-are entangled with those of racial identity. The text-based drawings and paintings mounted inside the cabinets feature elliptical aphorisms that call attention to the way color is deployed to categorize people.