Recharging the Image: Selections from the Mott-Warsh Collection

Recharging the Image

S E L E C T I O N S F R O M T H E MO T T - WA RSH COLLEC TION

Clarissa Sligh, Who We Was

Recharging the Image

S E L EC T I O N S F R O M T H E MO T T - WA RSH COLLEC TION APRIL 17 – JULY 10, 2016 We didn’t know who we was, but we knew we wasn’t who you all said we was.

This provocative statement from Clarissa Sligh’s 1987 screenprint, Who We Was, is repeated and superimposed over two types of contrasting images: dark-skinned people in stereotypical “tribal” regalia such as masks and grass skirts, and informal portraits of black families. In this work, Sligh, an African-American artist, pushes back at conventional modes of representation and acknowledges the challenge of creating a more authentic picture of black identity.

The work is a good point of entry to the exhibition, Recharging the Image: Selections from the Mott-Warsh Collection. This show, which includes Sligh’s screenprint, examines how over the last fifty years some African-American artists have offered a counter-narrative to the white, western, male, heterosexual perspective that has dominated art history. This influential group of 20th-century and contemporary artists (that also includes several African and African-Caribbean artists and an interracial couple working collaboratively) has produced works that challenge stereotypes, revise histories, retell stories, and

draw attention to people who have been ignored by or erased from history.

Some of the works reinterpret art historical genres and themes, while several react to specific paintings, recasting them with different characters or altering them in some manner. Kehinde Wiley firmly situates himself within the tradition of western portraiture by appropriating signs and positions of power and applying them to contemporary subjects. In Passing/Posing (St. Zeno) a young man wearing an LA Clippers jacket holds the cross and scroll of John the Baptist and reenacts the posture of St. Zeno from the Italian painter Whitfield Lovell, Untitled Bartolomeo Montagna’s Three Saints (Saint Zeno, Saint John the Baptist and a Female Martyr) in the collection of the National Gallery, London.

Wiley’s blending of late Renaissance prototypes with hip-hop street styles causes the viewer to register conformity and difference simultaneously. Similarly, Omar Victor Diop’s photograph, El Moro restages a 1913 portrait of a Moroccan man by Spanish artist, José Tapiro y Baro, with the artist sitting in as the subject.

The Senegalese photographer, elaborately turbaned and draped in colorful fabric, holds a soccer ball under his arm, referencing both the fame and recognition of sports and the challenge of being “other.”

Interestingly, two artists cast their characters in the dual roles of subject and artist, underscoring the power inherent in creating or altering images. In Titus Kaphar’s compelling Revisionist, a black woman reflecting the dress and formal conventions of 19th-century portraiture holds a baby, and perhaps more significantly, also wields a paintbrush that she uses to whitewash—and effectively erase—portions of the image. In A Legend Dimly Told, Robert Colescott places a paintbrush and palette in the hands of a cartoonish God who floats above Eden, from where he has presumably just painted a black Adam and Eve in the garden below. In both of these works black characters are presented as having control over the content and meaning of the works.

The theme of mother and child is prevalent throughout western art history, from representations of Mary and Jesus (nearly always portrayed as white people) to secular scenes of maternal love. Romare Bearden, a 20th-century artist renowned for his innovative and dazzling collages, used this medium to convey the emotional connection between a mother and her child. His small-scale

Omar Victor Diop, El Moro

Romare Bearden, Mother and Child*

minimalist composition, Mother and Child, is a powerful representation of African-American motherhood. Bearing—a suite of photographic prints on silk

by Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry focuses on African American women’s stories of pregnancy and childbirth. In the work on view, Shaquanna, a teen mother stands tall and resolute, protectively cradling the baby in her arms.

As in the Bearden collage, the eyes of the subject gaze directly at the viewer as if to assert and validate her presence in the long tradition of mother and child portraiture.

Some of the artists borrow fashions, objects, and ideas from popular culture to address issues of race, class, and gender, and a few appropriate stereotypical images to expose or examine racism. Others are concerned primarily with conveying a truer representation of the people we see every day. A few of their subjects are identified or even famous, but most are nameless. The artists’ insistent inclusion of these people as subjects reminds us that their previous absence renders both the historical record and art historical canon incomplete.

Like a worn-down battery, this diminished narrative is drained and in need of recharging. By foregrounding people of color and controlling the nature of their representation, these artists take ownership of the images and revitalize them. In doing so they present a more complete and authentic picture of our collective identity that tells us who we really are.

Mary Birmingham Curator *Romare Bearden, Mother and Child, 1969, Collage, 14 x 9 inches, Art © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA New York, NY

Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry, Bearing (Shaquanna) Cover: Kehinde Wiley, Passing/Posing (St. Zeno)

Carrie Mae Weems, I Looked and Looked but Failed to See What So Terrified You (Louisiana Project series)

Exhibition Checklist Romare Bearden Mother and Child, 1969

Collage 14 x 9 inches Art © Romare Bearden Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA New York, NY

Dawoud Bey Lakesha, Jackie and Crystal, 1996

Omar Victor Diop El Moro, 2014

From the “Diaspora” series Inkjet print 23 ½ x 23 ½ inches Image © Omar Victor Diop. Courtesy of Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris, France

Diane Edison Locks, 2002

8-part photograph 29 ½ x 22 inches (each); 61 x 92 inches overall

Colored pencil on paper 44 x 30 inches

Elizabeth Catlett These Two Generations, 1987

Nefertiti Goodman Getting Fixed to Look Pretty, 1978

Lithograph 24 x 36 inches

Linocut 40 x 30 inches

Robert H. Colescott A Legend Dimly Told, 1982

Mark Steven Greenfield Lesson #3, 2004

Acrylic on canvas 84 ¾ x 72 ¾ inches

Lithograph 34 x 22 inches

Titus Kaphar Revisionist, 2013

Photograph 34 x 50 inches

Seydou Keita The Girls from Mali, 1949 (printed in

Carrie Mae Weems I Looked and Looked but Failed to See What So Terrified You (Louisiana Project series), 2003

Oil on canvas 48 x 60 inches

2001) Gelatin silver print 18 ¾ x 13 3/8 inches

Whitfield Lovell Face, 2006

Mixed media 28 x 18 inches (overall)

Untitled, 2003

Mixed media on paper 12 x 9 inches Image © Whitfield Lovell. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY

Untitled (Card XLII), 2005 Mixed media on paper 12 x 9 inches

Bradley McCallum & Jacqueline Tarry Bearing (Shaquanna), 2006

Toner on silk, audio One from a suite of seven 50 ½ x 38 ½ inches Image © Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry

Ebony G. Patterson Disciplez Series, Untitled (Marvini Study), 2010

Mixed media on cloth (triptych) 18 inches diameter (each)

Clarissa Sligh Who We Was, 1987

Digital prints (diptych) 35 ¾ x 23 ¾ inches (each) Image © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY

Charles White Wanted Poster, 1970 Lithograph 22 x 30 inches

Woman of Dignity, 1965

Oil on board 60 x 24 inches

Kehinde Wiley Passing/Posing (St. Zeno), 2004

Oil on canvas 82 x 70 ½ inches framed © Kehinde Wiley Photo by Courtney Simpson

Philemona Williamson Prickly Pear, 2002

Oil on linen 48 x 60 inches

John Wilson Martin Luther King, Jr., 2002

Etching 35 x 30 inches

Richard Wyatt, Jr. Sister Wyatt, 1979 Graphite 15 x 21 inches

Screenprint 18 x 23 inches Image © Clarissa Sligh

Hank Willis Thomas The Cotton Bowl, 2011 All works on loan from the Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, MI.

About the Collection Fifteen years ago, Maryanne Mott and her late husband, Herman Warsh, set out to make a difference in her community of origin, Flint, Michigan, by facilitating meaningful engagement with art. Troubled by the steady decline of art education in public school systems across the United States and noticing the lack of art by people of color in many of the nation’s fine art museums, they decided to establish a collection of art by artists of the African diaspora and others who reflect on it. The work would be exhibited in public institutions in the city of Flint and beyond—in non-traditional art venues, such as the public library, the health department, and local churches, as well as cultural and educational institutions—making the art accessible to the broadest audience possible and providing an outlet for Flint’s largely African-American population to see visual art made from the perspective of their own.

Today, the Mott-Warsh Collection is comprised of over 600 works by 183 artists working in varied media and stylistic approaches. Bringing together an array of artists from post-World War II masters Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence and Elizabeth Catlett, to contemporary visionaries, such as Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley and Hank Willis Thomas, the collection celebrates diverse, innovative and compelling artworks by these artists who have influenced the character of 20th and 21st-century American art.

The Mott-Warsh Collection is delighted to have a portion of its collection on view at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in the exhibition, Recharging the Image: Selections from the Mott-Warsh Collection. The Collection would like to thank Executive Director Melanie Cohn for her fervent invitation to exhibit the collection at the Art Center, Trustee Joe Robinson for his enthusiastic and generous support of the exhibition, and Art Center Curator Mary Birmingham for her tireless efforts, critical eye, and insightful organization of the exhibition. We are thrilled to expand our outreach to the New Jersey tri-state region and confident that the exhibit will stimulate curiosity, contemplation, and lively discussion among all who view it.

Stephanie James Curator and Collection Educator, Mott-Warsh Collection

68 Elm Street, Summit, NJ 07901 | www.artcenternj.org This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of Marité and Joseph R. Robinson.

Major support for the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey is provided in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the WJS Foundation, the Wilf Family Foundations, and Art Center members and donors. To learn more about Art Center programs, visit our website at www.artcenternj.org or call 908.273.9121.