Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Two New Shows That Celebrate Black Women Artists

Clockwise from top left: Rosie Lee Tompkins’s “String,” 1985; Lorna Simpson’s “Carrie Mae Weems, Mexico,” 1982; Faith Ringgold’s “For the Women’s House,” 1971; Emma Amos’s “Sandy and Her Husband,” 1973.Credit...Clockwise from top left: Courtesy of Mark & Jenny Hurth/Sprüth Magers Los Angeles; Courtesy of Lorna Simpson. ©1982 Lorna Simpson; Courtesy of Rose M. Singer Center, Rikers Island Correctional Center. ©2017 Faith Ringgold/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York; Courtesy of Emma Amos. ©Emma Amos.

Two upcoming shows, one on each coast, will soon celebrate the myriad contributions of black women to the landscape of American art. “Power,” curated by Todd Levin at Sprüth Magers Los Angeles, is a major survey of work from the 19th century to the present, and includes pieces by Faith Ringgold, Mickalene Thomas and Kara Walker. The exhibition, titled after a 1970 gospel song, considers art as a means of resistance, whether in a pointed way — as in the case of contemporary photographer Nona Faustine’s nude self-portraits, meant to recall the slave trade — or merely by existing in the face of oppression, as is true of Alma Thomas’s ’60s-era abstract paintings.

Image
Alma Thomas’s “Untitled,” circa 1968.Credit...Courtesy of Hemphill Fine Arts/Sprüth Magers Los Angeles

Meanwhile, at the Brooklyn Museum, “We Wanted a Revolution” spans from 1965, the year of the Selma to Montgomery march, to 1985, exposing complexities of feminism, womanism, race and gender equality that we’re still sorting through. “It feels pressing now but it’s a conversation that black women have been having since the early 18th century,” says one of the exhibition’s curators, Rujeko Hockley, who helped select pieces by some 40 artists. One such work, a striking black-and-white photograph Lorna Simpson took of a young Carrie Mae Weems in Mexico, speaks to the bonds between black women and how those relationships inspire. Weems appears to be sitting alone, but of course Simpson is there with her, just behind the lens.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Page 38 of T Magazine with the headline: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT