Char Jeré '23 Remembers the Mind at Andrew Kreps
Sound Art alum Char Jeré recently debuted their solo gallery show, Remembering the Mind: A Study in Progress, at Andrew Kreps Gallery. The show, which rendered a complex relationship between race and technology, was on view January 10–February 1, 2025.
After receiving their MFA in 2023, Jeré opened Zoo or Orchestra—their first exhibition in New York—at Artists Space that same year. In 2024, they were included in the gallery’s group exhibition, Eighteen Painters, as well as Peripheral Belonging at GhostMachine, New York.
In Remembering the Mind, Jeré expanded on those works in a new layered, multimedia installation.
Jeré’s eclectic approach reflects their self-identification as an “Afro-Fractalist” artist. In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape that maintains its complex structure at increasingly small scales. Fractal patterns are known to appear ubiquitously in nature, having been observed in everything from frost crystals to human neurons. Accordingly, scientists, artists, and thinkers have applied fractal patterns to disciplines like writing, architecture, and psychology—Jeré applies the infinitely spiraling structure to Black temporalities. They build upon the tenets of Afrofuturism, troubling the implicit linear framework that is inseverable from capitalist, colonialist, and racist violence. They expounded on the concept in a 2024 interview with Bomb: “It makes the future less of a destination and more of an ongoing rehearsal or ritual. The future and the past are happening constantly and simultaneously. For me, Black futures take the shape of a fractal.”
The metaphor is fitting. Remembering the Mind: A Study in Progress unfolded on several scales: large, expressive mixed media paintings brought to life Jeré’s memories and dreams, which loomed over a sculptural array of repurposed technologies. The work expanded upon 2024’s Genuflect Symphony—a piece featured in GhostMachine’s group show, Peripheral Belonging—which reposited “Black Noise” not as an absence, but as an insistence upon amplifying the voices that history has repeatedly sought to mute.
The influence of this project was visible on the back wall of the installation, where black clay ears, all unique in size and shape, roamed the walls. One ear protruded cheekily from the wall’s edge, seemingly curious about the sounds beyond the gallery. On the opposite end of the room, the ears were mirrored by repurposed satellite dishes, which picked up found radio signals, only to be interrupted by the small army of Marsona sound machines in front of them, perched upon towers constructed from cans of bleach-containing household cleaner.
In Remembering the Mind: A Study in Progress, white noise was not soothing or neutral. Its ambient hum muffled and interrupted other potential sounds. For Jeré, this reflected the ever-present effects of systemic racism. In contrast, “Black Noise,” in the world of ambient noise, is as close as one can get to silence. Through this juxtaposition, Jeré asked the viewer to reconsider the notion of silence as passivity—to consider silence as the sound of listening.
Currently, Jeré is working on a new sound performance for the Media Arts Assistance Fund through NYSCA and Wave Farm, an international transmission arts organization based in the Upper Hudson Valley.