Lux et Veritas

This book documents the exhibition Lux et Veritas, organized by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale in 2022. The exhibition's title alludes to Yale University's motto, Lux et Veritas, which translates from Latin to "Light and Truth". In this context, the title references how these artists thought with critical complexity about their work and their movement through institutional structures.

As with similar programs, Yale School of Art, in New Haven, Connecticut, had not been historically diverse, which spurred these art students to form affiliations across the departments of painting, graphic design, sculpture, photography, and art history. They filled gaps in the school's curriculum and counteracted the lack of diversity among the faculty by inviting artists, curators, and writers of colour as advisors and guest speakers. They developed an interdisciplinary forum, published art journals, organized exhibitions, and documented their experiences in video and photography.

The relationships they formed at school evolved into communities that networked and provided essential support and feedback for one another, often passing on these efforts beyond graduate study. Their re-evaluation of the Western art canon and commitment to the method and practice of teaching has contributed to a greater recognition of artists of colour, challenged stereotypes, and enriched the overall shared spaces of learning and thinking about art and the art praxis.

Lux et Veritas provides a public forum in which to address the directions these artists took based on the explorations that began in graduate school and were instilled thereafter in their practice.