You Can't C Me by Cathleen Lewis

cathleen lewis

you can’t c me

oc tob e r 21 – decembe r 30, 20 06 4 0 ac re s art galle ry

Introduction by Kim Curry-Evans Essay by Lisa Teasley

ACKNOW LEDGE MENTS

The 40 Acres Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges

the contributions of many who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in order to make You Can’t C Me an artistic and educational success. St. HOPE staff and supporters are frequently called in, at a moment’s notice, to provide insight, guidance, an extra pair of hands or editing expertise when needed. This is called the St. HOPE way, and 40 Acres would be bereft of assistance without it. We are eternally grateful for the cando spirit that is the rule, and not the exception, of so many capable individuals. We would like to also thank in particular those who have contributed specialized needs for this project. We thank Bob Rennie of Vancouver, Canada, for agreeing to lend work from his personal collection to the exhibition. Dr. Sally McKee’s critical eye and professional editorial expertise make it easier for us to produce a quality exhibition catalogue. Additionally, Patrick Minor helped us to physically get the exhibition up and running—Patrick’s talent as a preparator, exhibit designer, and calm sage kept us sane during moments when we were belaboring the shortcomings of the gallery’s space. A special thanks to Andrew Capetta, who assisted Cathleen with editing the music used in the installation, You Can’t C Me.

dozen students who participated. Many thanks to Sac High students, Uria Davis, Marshae Ellis, Carissa Hatch, Char’Nae James, Ricardo Reyes, Aixin Situ, Granville Smith, Ashley Steiner, Cierra Townsend, and Rayshawn Welch, who gave up precious limited time during their summer break in order to take on an ambitious reading and art project. Special thanks always to Cathleen Lewis, for allowing us to bring her art to the West Coast. As a result, we are better off, having access to a creative vision that is at once both personal yet profound. We thank Cathleen for the opportunity to experience some of her world.

Wendi Everett and Danysse Smith paired up to head the art and reading project for our Sacramento High School students. Their passion for creating a learning environment that also encompasses art, all during Sacramento’s hot summer months, was for our beneﬁt, which is evident through the strong works of art created by the

Black, 1995. Crochet black rubber, stainless steel hooks, dimensions variable.

INTRODUCTION Kim Curry-Evans

“I am addressing the way “others” see us, and ways in which we see ourselves. This “seeing” is predetermined by the prevailing ideas in the dominant culture, which is often masked and subtly embedded into the subconscious.” —Cathleen Lewis

Cathleen Lewis’ name came to me through my research for the exhibition, HairStories, a show I curated a number of years ago when I worked at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. HairStories was about hair—specifically African American hair, and its impact on American culture. So many artists, particularly artists of color, literally use hair, or hair components, as a vehicle for self expression in their work. Many artists, from Wenda Gu and Lorna Simpson to Mark Bradford and David Hammons, know that identity, perception and memory is strongly reflected through the culture of hair. Cathleen’s name repeatedly rose up in my research. At the time, she was teaching at the Whitney Museum of Art. I actually couldn’t get through to her, as her gallery was insistent on handling her artistic affairs, and kept emphasizing that she wasn’t currently making any new artwork. But I was more interested in the pieces she had already done; namely one in particular that was literally a room full of woven hair, strung from the ceiling as if they were thick ropes of spider webs. Titled, Extensions (Ethnic Signifiers), the installation was indelibly etched into my memory as something that defied traditional concepts of art. Extensions brought to mind a Jackson Pollock canvas, transformed into a mono-chromatic 3D image, complete with tactile, textural dimensions. This installation, perhaps more than any other of the other works selected for HairStories, resonated with me both professionally, and personally. Aesethically, the work was simply stunning, drawing viewers in with its majesty and beauty. My own personal stories about my hair, rife with the words and phrases so common to other African

American women—kinky, relaxer, hot comb, hair grease, and “can I touch it?”—were encapsulated in Extensions. As I came to know Cathleen better, I realized that the one constant thread that connected her work was its emphasis less on using art as a vehicle for self-expression, but more about how imagery, marks, strokes, and words can become a means to exploring the cultural signiﬁcance of identity through signs. The strands of woven hair in Extensions are more than an indication of a cultural or ethnic type. It is a signiﬁer of race and cultural difference. That something as simple as strands of hair can do this is powerful, and such is the powerful stuff of which Cathleen’s work is made. The 40 Acres Art Gallery exhibition, You Can’t C Me, brings together works from her oeuvre that not only challenge the viewer to dig deeper in order to appreciate the particular dynamics that create astounding art, but to also consider Cathleen’s work as a catalyst to better understanding who we are within a culturally diverse society that still maintains a stronghold on stereotypical assumptions about race and identity. Rather, like Cathleen’s installation, 1,369, which is further explored in author Lisa Teasley’s accompanying essay and which is the artist’s interpretation on the underground apartment kept by Ralph Ellison’s main character in the modern classic, Invisible Man, we all struggle with how the world sees or ignores us. It is a measure of our character how we choose to identify ourselves, much like Ellison’s protagonist’s use of 1,369 light bulbs, powered illegally from the society that refuses to recognize him, in order to illuminate his world and render himself visible.

Extensions, Ethnic Signiﬁers, 1994. Synthetic hair and wire. Exhibited in 2005 at the Crocker Art Museum for Hairstories.

“By using reﬂective surfaces such as mirrors and stainless steel I am placing viewers in situations in which they might ask themselves how much they have invested in these perceptions of “blackness?” —Cathleen Lewis

Cathleen frequently explores the use of the language that identifies race in our culture, such as the signs and coding connected with such terms as “black” and “white.” Binary Oppositions and her series, Signifyin’ (g) are key examples of her work. The viewer can’t help but think of W.E.B. DuBois’ take on the double-consciousness—the sense of looking at oneself through the eyes of others—when peering at yourself through the 144 reflective stainless steel panels lined up gridlike on the wall. Words and phrases like “Black Magic,” “White Collar” and “Black Heart,” silk-screened on each panel, bounce back at you through your own reflection, conjuring up evocative associations based upon what your knowledge brings to the table. In Binary Oppositions, Cathleen is working on multiple layers, building up associations for the viewer that first begin literally and then go deeper to explore the metaphorical and subconscious levels. By pairing opposites—a binary opposition—we are automatically thinking antagonistically, according to Ferdinand de Saussure, in order to give structure and hierarchy to terms and concepts.1 Black becomes bad, white becomes good. It’s up to us to understand why. In 1993, Cathleen began a series of works that brought together imagery, photographs, quotes and sculptures in an effort to better understand the meanings behind language, its uses by different cultures, and the way an individual can be erroneously defined through their speech.

Signifyin’(g), is a reference to the ways words are properly pronounced, versus the vernacular version with the dropped “g.” Included in the installation are a series of photographs of black and white blocks, coupled with framed quotes from writers like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and James Baldwin on the uses of language as a means to racial identification. Replicated in large scale are the blocks, scattered across the floor in various geometric arrangements. The installation is a reference to the patterned blocks used historically, and controversially, to determine mental retardation and intelligence testing, but which was also criticized for assuming certain aptitude traits were genetic, and not learned, and did not take into account ethnicity, gender, class and creativity. The blocks are also named Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke, a phrase coined for giving traditionally derogatory and stereotypical words or phrases new meaning or a satirical spin. The title could also be an indirect reference to Ellison, whose 1958 essay by the same name clarifies some of the enigmatic references and symbolism recurring in Invisible Man. Aptly paraphrased by Greg Tate in the Village Voice, “Ralph Ellison once intimated that if you want to slip the yoke of slavery, then you got to change the joke.”2 In Signifyin’(g) Monkey a linear row of ink drawings of a monkey alternates with text taken from the lyrics of an Oscar Brown blues song, Signifying Monkey. The song made famous a trio of animal characters in African American oral tradition used primarily by men through narrative poetry to illustrate a struggle, an insult or opposition.3 The characters emphasize confusion over interpretations, and how easy it is to misunderstand language. Central to the narratives are the putdowns, also known as the dozens, which are familiar to anyone who has ever uttered a yo’ mama joke.

Signifying: a game or playful confrontation, as in playing the dozens, in which witty insults are exchanged. —Random House Webster’s College Dictionary

Other works in You Can’t C Me speak to familiar and memorable aspects of African American culture. Scariﬁcation is a reminder of the work exhibited in HairStories, and the reverberating symbolism for many African American women of the hot comb with thoughts of the kitchen, groups of women gathering together, and the smell of burning hair—and sometimes skin. Pairing a photograph of two framed hot combs with a separate framed image of canvas that has been repeatedly scorched by the heat from hot combs represents for the artist her own personal stories of the at-times painful Saturday afternoon ritual of hair preparation in her home, but which is also reminiscent of the bittersweet memories of time spent bonding with her mother and other women. Additionally, the sculptural piece, Naming, is particularly poignant. The battered wooden desk evokes obvious references of schooling and learning, and speciﬁcally within the context of this exhibition the inclusion of blacks in public education through the historic Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. Inscribed in gold lettering, however, are such distinctly African American names as Quayshaun and Danyele, which are usually devised as a derivative of African words or the creative re-interpretation of traditional Christian names. By representing these names in gold calligraphic script, Naming validates a component of black culture that has been relegated to the status of second cousin to more “acceptable” names. Through all of the work exhibited in You Can’t C Me, in order to understand the meanings behind the art and the titles that Cathleen gives them, you could easily misinterpret or get lost in the

linguistic implications and double messages. What it boils down to is this: it still isn’t enough to simply be African American. America’s centuriesold dance with race means black identity will always be rife with associations, consciously determined or subconsciously driven, some positive, but mostly stereotypical and negative. It is interesting to note that for most whites viewing her installations—ie, mainstream art institution audiences or academics—the language of her work gives the viewer the “ahah” moment; basically what is revealed is a guide to a greater understanding of how powerful the connections are between words and what they signify, particularly with regards to race. For black audiences however, the word uttered will be “uh-hunh,” because black folks will immediately understand and relate to the assumptions and stereotypes that inevitably are the burden to bear when existing as an African American in the United States. The issues raised in Ellison’s Invisible Man in 1952—are still very much relevant today. The 40 Acres Art Gallery is delighted to present for the ﬁrst time in California a solo exhibition of Cathleen’s work, and hopes that the exhibit will be a bridge to dialogue that celebrates our diversity yet also brings greater understanding to not only how we perceive each other, but how we view ourselves.

Endnotes 1

Sorcha Fogarty. “Binary Oppositions.” The Literary Encyclopedia. February 15, 2005.

Greg Tate. “Just Say No.” The Village Voice. October 28, 2005.

Kermit E. Campbell. “The Signifying Monkey Revisited:Vernacular Discourse and African American Personal Narratives.” JAC. 14.2 (1994).

CATHLEEN LEWIS, 1,369 BLACK AND BLUE Lisa Teasley

Well before Paul Klee’s Tunisian trip resulted in

his feeling of oneness with color, he had mastered form—the translation of movement through drawings, puppetry and monochromatic printmaking. Similarly, before Cathleen Lewis’s openended travels through Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, her conceptual, sculptural work explored the confining nature of gender, language and identity—how we move through this confinement despite of it. Lewis has done this with perspicacity, passion and aesthetic wit. She has expressed our imprisonment both by the oppressor and that of our own hand; she has challenged us to reflect upon these ways with pieces like combs, text written on wall-mounted stainless steel panels and mirrors, or with hair hanging like rope with menace, beauty and control from ceiling to floor to wall and back again. In the exhibit installation, 1,369, we find a grid of suspended photographs of light bulbs, hanging in space from ball-chained light switches, as playful as a child’s mobile. Like musical chimes, they sway with the heavy breeze of Louis Armstrong’s eponymous protest song. The shrine of photographs and light on the wall reference home—wherever it’s made—and a kind of private worship, as well. The idea of light, generated by current, suggests the power of thought, both in the individual and collective consciousness. Cathleen Lewis creates a kind of spiritual generator of light, suggesting our oneness with spirit. “Without light I am not only invisible, but formless as well; and to be unaware of one’s form is to live a death.” –Ralph Ellison, prologue, Invisible Man

In Ellison’s 1952 classic novel, Invisible Man, the narrator has hung 1,369 bulbs and harnessed electricity from the “Monopolated Light & Power” company. In the so-called black arts of numerology,

1,369 becomes the number 1. Fed up with corporate rip-off, Ellison’s protagonist finds a way to beat the system—in individual protest—as well as to light and warm his home, his being. He even lights his holey shoes with bulbs for warmth. In Lewis’s You Can’t C Me, a pair of men’s black shoes stand on chunks of black coal, and inside, a round bulb flickers with light and small shards of coal fill the shoes. Lewis’s interpretation of Ellison’s light bulb in the shoes is stunning and elegant in the absence of a man, his invisibility, a question of charred remains, the eventuality of death, and the suggestion as well of his spiritual presence. Both Ellison and Lewis express in the strength of one, in the force of an individual, how a single candle can light the darkness with the power of more than a thousand light bulbs. It is activism; it is grace. In Cathleen Lewis’s Black Is and Black Ain’t, a cluster of three porcelain sockets are suspended from the ceiling, forming a light sculpture of different size bulbs, some transparent, some opaque, one with a crucifix, another with the image of the Buddha. The socket extensions create different spatial relationships between the light bulbs. Here we find symbolized the varied forms of identity, whether self-imposed or forced from the outside world upon the self, hidden or revealed, large or small, close or far, spiritual or idol-driven. It is the double-consciousness Lewis has illuminated in her work before as in Binary Oppositions, which are silk-screen stainless steel panels dealing with language and the many uses (usually negative) of the word “black.” With Ralph Ellison’s protagonist having found a way to sabotage corporate America—a world that was entirely white at that time—he has still managed to harness light and power from a system that has refused to recognize his existence. This is what drew Cathleen Lewis into the work. “There is an irony here that someone who doesn’t exist can tap a power line to illuminate his existence,” Lewis states.

left Detail, 1,369, 2006. Suspended photographs.

In 1999, the Canadian artist Jeff Wall photographed a more literal translation of Ellison’s double-voiced signifying narrator in the basement of white corporate America. With a Cibachrome transparency in an aluminum lightbox, there is an African American man in a cluttered room lit by 1,369 light bulbs. In Cathleen Lewis’s 2006 piece we get the dreamscape—the at once ominous and freeing feeling of Ellison’s metaphor. Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so black and blue?”—perhaps the ﬁrst racial protest song of its time—gives us the beauty of his music in afﬁrming spiritual answer. And since sound is the vibration of matter while light waves are electromagnetic, traveling more readily through empty space, we understand Cathleen Lewis’s piece as a marriage between being and freeing. “I’ve illuminated the blackness of my invisibility—and vice versa.” – Ralph Ellison, prologue, Invisible Man

If one’s blackness comes before one’s humanity as a signifier to the outside world—and even to the mirror—then Ellison shows the way to break through one’s own self-confinement. “In Ellison’s introduction in describing the developing voice of his novel he states, ‘given the persistence of racial violence and the unavailability of legal protection, I asked myself, what else was there to sustain our will to persevere but laughter? And could it be that there was a subtle triumph hidden in such laughter that I had missed, but one which still was more affirmative than raw anger?’ He goes onto describe it as bluestoned laughter. It is this form of signifying with, double meaning, double consciousness and codified language, so prevalent in African American history, that I have sought to reveal in such work as Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke, Signifyin’ (g), Signifyin’ (g) Monkey, Binary Oppositions, and Naming,” Lewis explains. “It is this double-voiced signifying that continues to inform my work.”

The viewer is the participant, taking on a large role in Cathleen Lewis’s installation of being and freeing, just as James Turrell demands of his viewers when standing in the space of his powerful works with light. David Hammons turned the viewer into the invisible one—much like Ralph Ellison takes the reader on a journey of life as an Invisible Man—where the viewer/participant, takes a flashlight through the darkness of Hammons’s 2002 Concerto in Black and Blue. In this poetic respect, Lewis and Hammons share a similarity in theme: the viewer must take a journey physically, intellectually, spiritually to find the meaning, the individual resonance of the piece as it relates to his or her own being. If there is heaviness to being, a relentless weight to uncertainty, fate versus will, violence, and the continuing fight for inalienable rights, then there is also the magic of discovery, the infinity of the imagination. In politically oppressive times, exploring the latter is no small feat. Cathleen Lewis rises to the occasion of inspiration and imagination in a most difficult era. Now we find ourselves in a profoundly unsettling period of war, as we witness acts of terrorism on all sides, govern-

takes bravery. To work with imagination and the power of the mind is a deﬁant act of courage in corporate media-numbing times.

ment violation of the Constitution, mandates of the United Nations, and the Geneva Conventions. All of the above create great economic upheaval, as well as spiritual and societal unrest. We ﬁnd ourselves, once again, in a period of questioning whether we, the people, control the government or whether the government controls us. We are living in a time when popular opinion wonders whether we live in a democracy, at all. Once declared a degenerate artist during World War II atrocities and the rise of fascism, Paul Klee then went through a period of acute depression. He retreated from work and living. Before September 11th, Cathleen Lewis lived and worked near the World Trade Center, and experienced the ﬁrst bombing, which received very little attention compared to the following shockingly cruel acts. Living in Harlem on September 11, 2001, Lewis again experienced the anguish most Americans felt—as well as many in the world—and she suffered it acutely. Pain and loss come in whatever harsh measures with change, but as Alice Walker describes in an essay from her book, In Search of Our Mothers Gardens, change equals pain equals growth. To explore the world, to explore one’s self

Cathleen Lewis’s earlier sculptural pieces—particularly the black Rapunzel locks of synthetic hair—demand that you enter and climb with the mind, that you save the African American Rapunzel from the tower, save yourself from a self-imposed imprisonment in a culture of false youth, false truth, false beauty and false justice. All societies inflict their own standards of so-called truth and beauty; ours is not alone in the perpetration of false ideals. Ours is not alone in the perpetration of double standards, as evidenced here in this country with hurricane Katrina and last year’s immigrant riots in France. But, in Cathleen Lewis’s new piece involving the simple, everyday image and object of the light bulb—clean and modern—we find an encouragement to find one’s own light, one’s own truth, justice, and beauty from the everyday and from within. And so in the end, Paul Klee returned to the serenity he found in working with color, he found again his unfettered expression of the world, as well as his inner self. In the entirety of this show, in the deft hand and mind of Cathleen Lewis, we find the motivation to find our own expression of light and transcendence. The same year of the publication of Ralph Ellison’s novel, 1952, the Supreme Court heard the school desegregation case, Brown vs. Board of Education. The continuing struggle for Civil Rights still had many significant events just ahead—Rosa Parks, The Little Rock Nine, and the four little girls bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, to name a few. This year, Congress and the Senate voted to renew the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which was established to protect African Americans who were being denied the right to vote in the deep South. Since the dispute over both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, Americans can agree we still face today the question of whether our

PL ATES

vote—black, white, Asian, Latino or Native American—is being counted at all. In numbers, African Americans are still behind in education and earning power while, statistically speaking, still leading in poverty and as death row inmates. Bearing all of this in mind, we see the issues Ralph Ellison faced in his time are still, sadly, very much relevant today, as Cathleen Lewis’s exhibition so beautifully and metaphysically illustrates. African Americans may never have received “reparations” or the promised forty acres and a mule. But to live a life embittered by undelivered promises, indignities and the collective ancestral memory of our enslavement, is to live life in a kind of walking death. Bitterness maims, bitterness kills. Disease can very well come from the mind. Therefore, the health of one’s consciousness is of the utmost importance. To be in touch with one’s imagination, creativity, and truth is in step with living life with the higher laws of the universe. We can look for inspiration in art, literature, and music—to those who create—to ﬁnd the questions, the answers, the coping with the difﬁculties of the world. We can look to artists for examples of what we have been through, and what we are going through. And so, regardless of one’s faith during this medieval time of war in the name of religion, the artist, Cathleen Lewis seems to say in her exhibition inspired by writers like Ralph Ellison and musicians like Louis Armstrong: “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine, every day, every day.”

Lisa Teasley is the author of the acclaimed novels Heat Signagture and Dive, and the award-winning story collection, Glow in the Dark, all published by Bloomsbury. Lisa Teasley’s books have been praised in publications such as the New York Times Book Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Village Voice; her essays have appeared in Essence Magazine, Real Simple, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Christian Science Monitor and on National Public Radio. She is the host of BBC Television’s 2006 documentary, “High School Prom,” the ﬁrst of the new “American Visions” series. A painter as well, Ms. Teasley has had numerous one woman shows including the Watts Towers Art Center and the University of California, Santa Barbara; she has also participated in many group shows such as at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Brockman Gallery, and the Los Angeles County of Museum of Art’s Sales and Rental Gallery.

right Untitled, 1994. Horsehair, thread, cotton cord.

Naming, 1998. Wood desk with carved names and gold enamel. Collection of Bob Rennie Management, Vancouver, Canada.

ScariďŹ cation, C-prints. 15

Signifyinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;(g), 1999. Photographs mounted museum board. right Details from Signifyinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;(g).

above Signifyinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;(g) Monkey, 1993. Ink on paper drawings and text. left Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke, 1999. Wood cubes.

Fence I and II, 1996. C-prints on aluminum.

left Binary Oppositions,1995. Silkscreened stainless steel panels. above Detail, Binary Oppositions.

Detail, 1,369, 2006. Suspended photographs.

SUMMER A RT PROJECT Wendi Everett, Education and Outreach Manager 40 acres art gallery

How do you get teenagers to read a book that was written in the 1950s and have them con-

nect the book’s major themes to their own lives? Compound that by having them read the book during the summer and complete it in only two weeks. The way we do this at Sacramento High School is to tell it as it is: that this will be an extraordinary opportunity that only happens to us in Oak Park. As a result of an idea created and evolved from the New York-based artist Cathleen Lewis, students from Sac High were invited to read Ralph Ellison’s book, Invisible Man, and to respond artistically to the reading. As always, I jumped at the opportunity of engaging students in a project with such nobility and depth. This summer, I put together a list of students that have found their own artistic creativity through photography. I called each one, presenting the prospect of working on a special exhibit at the 40 Acres Art Gallery, a project so special and unique, only a select group of students were invited to participate. I was Ashley Steiner, Senior, School of the Arts. cautious, since I was afraid of the students losing interest in the project, since they would be required to read a book. But each student eagerly agreed and all showed up on a Friday, during summer vacation, in order to embark on this journey through the life of the Invisible Man. To my astonishment, the students found great relevance in the life of the book’s main character. At our meetings, students expressed how they too could understand the idea of being invisible. They related to this concept in profound ways, such as race, age, gender and through the lineage of their own families. Students examined the metaphors and symbolism that they discovered in the book. They discussed the meaning behind the subjects and applied their personalities to the symbolism of color and objects. They openly shared their views on the narrator’s life and themes such as being an outsider, being an outcast, being ignored and the blindness of others, as well as prejudice, race, humanity, equality, ancestry, betrayal, violence, authority and rules. Students shared their thoughts on how the book might have been written over ﬁfty years ago, but still pertinent to their lives today. They talked about how they would read, sleep and then wake up with a different perspective. They respectfully disagreed in regards to the characters and their conversations with one another in the text. In an overwhelming feeling of pride, I sat amidst young adults who were dialoging at a level familiar to my college experience. What a great joy to consistently be impressed with the level of thoughtfulness and commitment of our students at Sac High!

The goals given to students for this particular project included finding themes in the book that were inspiring and significant, sketching through their ideas, and planning and creating an artistic response to their reading. Most of the students used photography as their format but one wanted to create a painting and others wanted to create mixed media works. During the working stages of the project, Cathleen Carissa Hatch, Senior, Lewis made a special visit to meet with the School of Business & Communications. students. This visit was a wonderful experience for the students to hear firsthand about Cathleen’s life, as well as why she chose to do this project. The students shared their future plans, what their university majors will be, and why they love photography and art. They were engaged in a discussion about the book and on the intense thematic storyline. Again, I was honored to be a part of such an exceptional group of youth and sharing in a valuable dialogue with an amazing artist such as Cathleen. Thank you to all the students that participated in this project. I am so proud to work with you and see you develop into fine artists who have discovered their invisibility and made it powerful beyond just pictures.You gave your mind and heart to creating a memorable experience. A special thank you is extended to Danysse Smith, who worked hard at guiding the students through the reading, and was available after school for extra book discussions. And of course, a special thank you to Cathleen Lewis for bringing this vigorous and powerful project to Oak Park.

Granville Smith, Senior School of Business & Communications

A RTIST BIO

Cathleen Lewis is an artist and educator. Cathleen’s curriculum vitae includes one-person shows at CRG Gallery in New York, Lehman College Art Gallery, and two-person shows at the Bronx Museum of Art and PS122, as well as numerous group shows, including recent exhibits at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary art and the Chicago Cultural Center. Her educational teaching background includes teaching at the School of Visual Art, Head of Youth and Family Programs at the Whitney Museum of American Arts, and museum lecturer at the Museum of Modern Art. Lewis studied at the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1993, received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1994, and completed the Whitney Museum’s postgraduate program, ISP, in 1995.

education 1994 – 1995

Whitney Independent Study Program

1992 – 1994

MFA, School of Visual Arts

1993

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

1990 – 1992

BS, Skidmore College

one-person exhibitions 1999

jes grew, CRG, New York

1996

The Bronx Celebrates, Cathleen Lewis, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York Binary Oppositions, CRG, New York

1995

Cathleen Lewis, New Artists Warehouse Gallery, New York

selected group exhibitions 2005

HairStories, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento HairStories, 40 Acres Art Gallery, Sacramento HairStories, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans Double Consciousness, Black Conceptual Art Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston Off the Wall: Installations by Jennifer Angus, Adam Davis, John Hitchcock, and Cathleen Lewis, University Of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Edna Carlsten Gallery, Stevens Point, Wisconsin

2004

HairStories, Chicago Cultural Center HairStories, Scottsdale Contemporary Museum, Arizona

1998

Picture/Image/Word, Lemmerman Gallery, Jersey City, New Jersey After School,Visual Arts Museum, SVA, New York

1997

Text & Touch, Art Gallery Hunter College Fine Arts Building, New York Hair Do, The Work Space, New York Cathleen Lewis and Micheal Richards: Recent Work, The Bronx Museum of the Arts In The Beginning Was The Word, Wustum Museum, Racine, Wisconsin

1996

Benefit Auction, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, New York La Toilette de Venus:Women and Mirrors, CRG, New York No Doubt, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut Benefit Auction, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York

1995

1994

1993

Summer Group Show, CRG, New York

Merkling, Frank. “Art from the Garden, In-Your-Face, on High,” The News-Times, May 30, 1996.

Wax, Nohra Haime Gallery, New York

Murdock, Robert M. Text & Touch, November 1, 1997.

Resisting Categories, City Without Walls, Newark, New Jersey

Raynor,Vivien. “Puerto Rican Artists Bridge Two Worlds Apart,” The New York Times, December 4, 1994.

From Head to Toe, Longwood Arts Gallery, Bronx, New York

Raynor,Vivien. “Show Devoted to Recalling Legacy of Racial Oppression,” The New York Times, January 19, 1997.

Nicaela Callimanopulos, Installation/Cathleen Lewis, Sculpture, PS 122 Gallery, New York

Sale, Teel and Claudia Betti. Drawing, a Contemporary Approach. Fifth edition.

Artists In The Marketplace XIV, The Bronx Museum of Arts, New York

Schetzel Florence. Poughkeepsie Journal, January 7, 1994.

Hair:The Long And The Short Of It, Smithtown Township Arts Council, St. James, New York

Schwendener, Martha. “Bull Market,” Time Out, August 26 – September 2, 1999.

Go Back And Fetch It, Gallery Annex, New York

Shine, James, G. Daily Freeman Review, January 21, 1994.

Identity and Culture, Barrett House, Poughkeepsie, New York

“The Shock of the ‘Do,” Artnews, May 2004.

1000 Drawings, Artist Space, New York

Simerman, John. New York Newsday, November 15, 1994.

honors and awards

Sirmans, Franklin. Lehman College Art Gallery, November – January 1997, catalog. Sirmans, Franklin. New Artists Warehouse, April 1995, catalog.

1996

Scholarship, Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle, Washington

Sirmans, Franklin. “Notes On Hair,” Shade, September 1994.

1995

Residency, Blue Mountain Center, New York

Sirmans, Franklin. “Remixing the Art World: Art in the Global Marketplace,” Flash Art, May – June 1997.

1994

Residency, The Virginia Center For The Creative Arts

Stack, Sarah. Taconic Newspapers, January 27, 1994.

selected bibliography

Tagami, Ty. “Helping Emerging Artists Learn their Marketplace,” Newsday, August 16, 1994. Time Out New York, January 31 – February 7, 1996.

“African-American Art of the ‘90’s will Fill Aldrich Galleries this Summer,” Stepping Out!, May 15 – 16, 1996.

Trebay, Guy. Village Voice, January 23, 1996.

Amos, Emma. Resisting Categories, January 26, 1995.

Watkins, Eileen. The Star-Ledger, March 3, 1995.

Artists in the Marketplace, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, July 1994, catalog.

Yablonsky, Linda. “Harlem’s New Renaissance,” Artnews, April 2002.

Berger, Maurice. “The Delicate Quest: Paradox in Contemporary African-American Art,” No Doubt, May 19 – September 1, 1996.

Yablonsky, Linda. Time Out New York, September 18 – 25, 1996.

Canning, Susan. Art Papers, November/December, 1998. Clifford, Kathy. Art Papers, May – June 1996.

Zimmer, William. “A New Generation Emerging On Often Irreverent Terms,” The New York Times, July 28, 1996. Zimmer, William. “A Religious Spirit Vies with Fun,” The New York Times, July 31, 1994.

Cotter, Holland. “Art in Review,” The New York Times, January 10, 1997. Cotter, Holland. “A Showcase for Artists Learning Their Business,” The New York Times, August 19, 1994. DoubleConsciousness, Black Contemporary Art Since 1970, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, January 22 – April 17, 2005, catalog. Goodman, Jonathan. The Galleries of New Jersey City University, 1998, catalog. Groarke, Ciaran. Norwood News, December 14 – 27, 1994. HairStories, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, October 3 – January 4, 2004, catalog. Herrman, Andrew. “Axle Grease, Afros, Cornrows, Hot Combs, Dreadlocks,” Chicago Sun Times, April 30, 2004. Hilts, Elizabeth. “Symbols We Carry,” Fairﬁeld County Weekly, May 23 – 29, 1996. Hoeltzel, Susan. Lehman College Art Gallery, November – January 1997, catalog. Koplos, Janet. Art In America. April 1996. Levin, Kim. “Critic’s Choice,” Village Voice, January 23, 1996. Lewis, Cathleen and Michael Richards, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, April – June 1997, catalog.

EXHIBITION CHECK LIST All works are the collection of the artist unless otherwise noted.

Scariﬁcation, 1993 C-prints 20" x 24" each

Untitled, 1997 Silkscreened hand mirror and brushes 20" x 14" x 1" each

Signiﬁyin’ (g) Monkey, 1993 Ink on paper drawings 8½" x 11" each

Naming, 1998 Wood desk with carved names and gold enamel 24 ½" x 31⅜" x 28" Collection of Bob Rennie,Vancouver, Canada

Boxes, 1994 Horsehair, curling irons 14" x 9" x 2" each

Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke, 1999 Wood cubes, 23" square, each

Moss, 1994 Horsehair, thread, liquid latex Dimensions variable

Signifyin’ (g), 1999 20 photographs mounted on museum board 7 ½" x 9 ¼" each

Untitled, 1994 Horsehair, thread, cotton cord Dimensions variable

1,369, 2006 Light sculpture and suspended photographs Dimensions variable

Binary Oppositions, 1995 Silkscreened stainless steel panels 157" x 221"

Black Is/Black Ain’t, 2006 Black shoes, light, coal Dimensions variable

Black, 1995 Crochet black rubber, stainless hooks Dimensions variable

You Can’t C Me, 2006 Black shoes, light, coal Dimensions variable

Fence I and Fence II, 1996 C-prints on aluminum 20" x 30" and 20" x 27"

You Can’t C Me, 2006 C-prints 31" x 19" each

Good Presence, 1997 Silkscreened mirrors with images and text 8 ½" x 11" each