The Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson opened “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation,” an exhibition on the life and work of self-taught artist L.V. Hull that runs through June 14, the museum said. The show, presented in partnership with the L.V. Hull Legacy Center, is the first major museum exhibition devoted to Hull, the museum added.
Hull, who was born in 1942 and died in 2008, turned her Kosciusko house and garden into an immersive art environment using found and donated objects, paint and glue, the museum said. The L.V. Hull Legacy Center and the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko said Hull’s home and studio was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2024, the first home of a Black female visual artist to receive that recognition.
Guest co-curator Yaphet Smith, a friend of Hull’s and a board member of the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko, said the exhibition title comes from a saying Hull repeated in her work. Smith said the phrase, in full, is “Love is a sensation, started by a conversation, spread by the population and hurts like an operation,” and that clips of his documentary of the same name are included in the show. The Mississippi Museum of Art said it will host a premiere screening of Smith’s documentary on April 9.
Co-curator Ryan Dennis said the museum arranged the works and ephemera so visitors can study Hull’s detail-oriented practice. Dennis said the curators removed objects from Hull’s home environment to allow individual paintings and assemblages to “breathe,” and to reveal handwritten notes, painted plaquettes and small found-object tableaux. Annalise Smith of the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko is also part of the curatorial team, the museum said.
Betsy Bradley, the Laurie Hearin McRee director of the Mississippi Museum of Art, said the show runs concurrently with “Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground,” and that both one-artist exhibitions highlight ties between artists and their communities. The L.V. Hull Legacy Center and the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko said Hull’s preserved home will be part of a new visual arts campus in Kosciusko with a parallel exhibition and programming planned to open this June.
