{"id":56398,"date":"2021-01-28T14:27:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T20:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=56398"},"modified":"2021-02-02T14:20:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T20:20:36","slug":"umfas-black-refractions-offers-a-more-accurate-account-of-our-shared-american-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/umfas-black-refractions-offers-a-more-accurate-account-of-our-shared-american-history\/","title":{"rendered":"UMFA’s “Black Refractions” Offers a More Accurate Account of Our Shared American History"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Installation view of “Black Refractions” with Maren Hassinger\u2019s \u201cRiver\u201c on the floor, photo by UMFA<\/p><\/div>\n

On July 3, 2020, The New York Times reported<\/span> that the Black Lives Matter protests in response to the May 25th<\/sup> death of George Floyd likely constituted the largest in United States history, garnering a half-million participants in over 500 locations at their peak. The magnitude of these events collided with an America encountering a once-in a century health crisis, creating a timely recipe for a collective awakening regarding how Black and brown Americans have, since the nation\u2019s inception, been subjected to persistent and unimaginable injustice. Inevitably, visual culture is responding to this moment, evidenced by spontaneous murals, artworks, and literature taking note of history unfolding.<\/h4>\n

Indeed, art is among the most powerful tools through which to exercise a nation\u2019s history\u2014individually through the voices of artists, and collectively through the movements and institutions they create. Far too often however, such personal narratives conflict with an idealized cultural cohesion imagined by the dominant caste, who, either through submission, apathy, or tokenization, relegates minority art as monolithic or distinct from<\/i> instead of intrinsically part of<\/i> American history.<\/h4>\n
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Installation view including Tom Lloyd\u2019s \u201cMoussako,\u201d center of the wall, photo by UMFA<\/p><\/div>\n

Now, Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum<\/em>,\u00a0<\/i>a new exhibition on view at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, offers Utahns a rare glimpse into the deep and multi-faceted collection of Harlem\u2019s Studio Museum, one of America\u2019s most groundbreaking institutions.<\/h4>\n

The traveling exhibition showcases more than one hundred artworks by nearly 80 artists from the 1920s to the present. This monumental exhibition is arranged thematically, offering tantalizing avenues through which to contextualize this rich body of work. Among these themes are \u201cmateriality,\u201d or the ways in which artists of African descent explore abstraction using non-traditional media; \u201cframing blackness,\u201d highlighting and critiquing visual representations of black identity; and \u201cnotions of progress,\u201d an evaluation of how and to what degree progress has been attained.<\/h4>\n

The Studio Museum\u2019s core mission is to collect and foster work made by American and international artists of African descent, as well as work inspired by black culture. Founded in 1968, a pivotal moment of social and political activism in America, the Studio Museum\u2019s creators vied with the status quo for an institution shaped by black voices. Adding to the urgency of activism were growing frustrations over institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art, host to the controversial 1971 exhibition Contemporary Black Artists in America<\/i>, which imagined shows without the insight and contributions of black artists and curators.<\/h4>\n

Indeed, this issue of equity persists in the modern day. The act of recognizing the contributions of persons of African descent, as well as Native American and other non-white artists, is multi-faceted. Should the goal be to expand the all-powerful art historical canon or to demolish it? Does one invariably lead to the other? For institutions and curators, representation is a start, but often does not go far enough. As the Whitney debacle demonstrates, it isn\u2019t enough to merely show the work of Black artists, it\u2019s vital for viewers to partake in exhibitions crafted by Black artists and curators using their own creative agency.<\/h4>\n

It is then important, to say the least, that such a collection would reach Utah. The state composed of a majority white population \u2014 90.6% as per the 2020 census <\/span>\u2014 can now engage with works that inform and challenge perceptions about black experience.\u00a0 <\/span>Importantly however, while much of the exhibition grapples with the personal and the political, many of the works concern materiality, experimentation, and abstraction\u2014affirming that the work of artists of African descent need not be defined merely by their biographies, but, of course, by their practices as well.<\/h4>\n
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Glenn Ligon (b. 1960), Give Us a Poem, 2007,
Black PVC and white neon, 75 5\/8 \u00d7 74 1\/4 in.
The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Glenn Ligon
2007.32<\/p><\/div>\n

For UMFA, the process of obtaining the exhibition was an interesting one that began five years ago, when the museum was closed to undergo widespread renovations. Whitney Tassie, UMFA\u2019s Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, says that the Studio Museum, who prior to this show had never travelled their collection, had the specific intent of bringing their collection to a larger audience. \u201cWe had to jump on this because we knew this was a phenomenal collection and this was a once in a lifetime opportunity,\u201d says Tassie.<\/h4>\n

Although UMFA secured the show years ago, as the exhibition drew closer, the COVID-19 pandemic presented real obstacles, including a delay in the exhibition schedule, a rapid shift to online programming<\/span>, and devising a strategy to account for in-person museum attendance in a safe manner. Adding to the ordinary stress of installing an exhibition of this size was the fact that the two curators who would normally travel to assist the museum with install were required to assist remotely instead. In a remarkable feat, the museum was forced to re-vamp their installation schedule and communicate with the curators over Zoom and Facetime, which led to a considerably longer install than the customary two-week timeframe. Despite such challenges, the exhibition is stunningly executed, replete with neatly organized sections of visually and conceptually tantalizing works that call for multiple viewings.<\/h4>\n

At the outset, Glen Ligon\u2019s large light sculpture \u201cGive us a Poem,\u201d 2007, presents the large words \u201cME\u201d atop the word \u201cWE.\u201d Light moves back and forth as each word lights up in succession, highlighting the interplay between the personal and the collective.<\/h4>\n

Adjacent to the museum\u2019s grand hall are a series of works which concern a diverse array of experimentation\u2014some showcasing the power of the abstract mark and many others which demonstrate the remarkable possibilities of materiality. Tom Lloyd\u2019s \u201cMoussako,\u201d c. 1968, composed of aluminum, lightbulbs, and plastic laminate, is striking \u2014 at once evoking a High-Modernist sculptural milieu while simultaneously calling to mind mechanical car parts and traffic lights. Lloyd\u2019s work, as per the museum\u2019s label, \u201cembraces abstraction at a time when audiences expected works by artists of African descent to be socially relevant and representational.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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Thomas, Mickalene, Panthera, 2002, rhinestones on acrylic on birch panel. Published by The Studio Museum in Harlem,with funds provided by the Acquisition Committee, 2003.10.9. \u00a9 Mickalene Thomas \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Zalika Azim.<\/p><\/div>\n

Mickalene Thomas\u2019 \u201cPanthera,\u201d 2002, is a dazzling work composed of rhinestones on birch panel showcasing a panther\u2014 a symbol of Black feminine power for the artist\u2014sprawling in a lush canopy of hanging vines, teeth out and ready to pounce. From a distance, Kori Newkirk\u2019s \u201cSolon 6:12,\u201d 2000, takes inspiration from the negative press bestowed on tennis ace Venus Williams, whose beaded hair was deemed inappropriate for her 1997 U.S. Open appearance. At a distance, the work, consisting of plastic pony beads, looks like a beautifully contrasted abstract painting. Upon closer inspection, the physicality of the work is evident, as the beads hang down in delicate threads.<\/h4>\n

Elsewhere, Leonardo Drew\u2019s \u201cNumber 74,\u201d 1999, made of rust, fabric, string, stuffed toys, and wood, is both unruly and painstakingly devised, evoking themes of subjugation, decay, and memory. Among the most striking of works in this materiality category is Maren Hassinger\u2019s \u201cRiver,\u201c<\/i> 2011 (first constructed 1972), a sculpture devised of chain and rope. The work coils in a snake-like manner throughout the floor of the large gallery space, haunting and unrelenting as it beckons for our attention. Hassinger\u2019s interest in manufactured materials unmistakably evokes the horrors of slavery and the Middle Passage, forcing a painful reckoning with the nation\u2019s past.<\/h4>\n

Hanging regally on a blue wall at the entrance to a separate gallery, Barkley L. Hendricks\u2019 remarkable \u201cLawdy Mama,\u201d 1969, captivates. The portrait, devised of oil and gold leaf on canvas, is the museum\u2019s signature PR image for the show \u2014 it represents a Black woman with arms folded and pose erect, gazing sharply at the viewer. The figure\u2019s apparent strength and royal visage, shrouded in gold, evokes a Byzantine icon of early-Christian lore. The power of such posture is emphatic, elevating the feminine Black figure to the role formerly preserved for saints and, singularly, for white figures.<\/h4>\n
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Barkley L. Hendricks, Lawdy Mama, 1969, oil and gold leaf on canvas. The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Stuart Liebman, in memory of Joseph B. Liebman, 1983.25. \u00a9 Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist\u2019s estate, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and American Federation of Arts.<\/p><\/div>\n

The works in these adjoining galleries grapple with notions of marginalization, representation, and progress. Among the most stirring works in the exhibition are Titus Kaphar\u2019s \u201cJerome IV\u201d and \u201cJerome XXIX,\u201d both 2014, two small paintings comprised of oil, gold leaf, and tar on wood. On the surface of each modestly sized work a man\u2019s face is visible atop a bright gold background. Each face is half-obscured by thick, dark tar, evoking a sensation of muzzling and suffocation. This visual device is emblematic of the work\u2019s narrative, as these painted mug shots began with the artist \u201csearching online databases for his father\u2019s prison records, [in which] Kaphar found ninety-nine other men who shared the same first and last name and were jailed for nearly identical crimes,\u201d according to the museum\u2019s label.<\/h4>\n

Elsewhere, Steffani Jemison\u2019s video piece \u201cManiac Chase,\u201d 2008-09, depicts an endless loop of running figures moving through various settings. The repetition and arduousness of the task symbolizes the fight for social mobility in a deeply unequal America. Seeing this in the year following the horrific death of Ahmaud Arbery, <\/span>a Black man murdered by two white men while jogging down a residential street in Georgia, the work takes on even more searing weight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n
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Steffani Jemison (b. 1981), Maniac Chase, 2008-2009,Digital video
Endless loop The Studio Museum in Harlem; Museum purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition Committee
2013.13.1<\/p><\/div>\n

Still other works directly address the art historical canon\u2019s white domination. Works such as Lois Mailou Jones\u2019 \u201cStill Life with Portrait,\u201d 1944, is a striking example: a work in which a portrait of a Black woman is interposed with a still life and an Ionic column, recognizable symbols of white Western tradition. Two works by Kehinde Wiley\u2014\u201cThe Gypsy Fortune Teller,\u201d 2007 and \u201cConspicuous Fraud Series #1 (Eminence),\u201d 2001\u2014each implicate the dominance of white bodies in art historical masterpieces and, by extension, what viewers have come to connote with elegant \u201cmasterpieces.\u201d The large tapestry of \u201cFortune Teller\u201d is a visual wonder, weaving the intricacy and style of an 18th<\/sup>-century French tapestry fit for a royal palace with a grouping of Black men at its center. The act is at once powerful and subversive \u2014undermining the art historical \u201cmasterpiece\u201d of Western lore with a post-colonial appropriation. Additionally, the title of Wiley\u2019s \u201cConspicuous Fraud\u201d <\/i>gives us a hint that the figure dominating the work\u2019s composition \u2014 a Black man with large, intersecting locks of hair\u2014may be considered an outlier. The painting\u2019s subject is dominant and unmistakably captivating, reminding us of how rarely in the art historical canon are we granted permission to marvel at the beauty and stoic presence of a powerful Black male.<\/h4>\n
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Wiley, Kehinde, Conspicuous Fraud Series #1 (Eminence), 2001, oil on canvas. Published by The Studio Museum in Harlem, purchase made possible by a gift from Anne Ehrenkranz, 2002.10.14. \u00a9 Kehinde Wiley.<\/p><\/div>\n

For many, the calamity of 2020 has ushered in an urgent reminder of the need for prioritization and reconciliation. The varied works of \u201cBlack Refractions\u201d invite us to consider the indelible role of Black artists in shaping art historical trends and institutions. Aside from such academic concerns, as Utah\u2019s demographics become increasingly diverse, it is incumbent on us all to avoid treating the contributions of minority artists as merely \u201cdistinct\u201d histories but see them, in fact, as a more accurate accounting of our shared American history.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem<\/em>, Utah Museum of Fine Arts<\/a>, through April 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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