Terence Hammonds: Soul is a Ham Hock in Your Cornflakes

With a title plucked from Funkadelic’s 1970 song What is Soul?, this exhibition featuring the work of Cincinnati-based artist Terence Hammonds throws a proverbial ham hock into the museum’s bowl of cornflakes. As the song’s vivid lyrics suggest, power and meaning often emerge from unlikely combinations, and “nothing is quite good until you play with it.” Pairing historical objects from the museum’s collections with his newly created printed ceramics, wallpaper, and textiles, Hammonds constructs unexpected vignettes that speak to Black history, resilience, and cultural imagination. “By juxtaposing these objects, I aim to create a form of historical fiction—a speculative ‘what if’,” Hammonds explains. “Through pattern, narrative, and material culture, [the exhibition] imagines how the visual language of domestic heirlooms might look if shaped by the histories, stories, and aspirations of Cincinnati’s Black middle class.”