Truths and Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice a pop-up memorial museum
Teaching Gallery, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, Spring 2020
Truths and Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice Curated by Geoff Ward, Associate Professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies in Arts & Sciences, in conjunction with his seminar “Monumental Anti-Racism” in Spring 2020.
February 7 – April 19, 2020 Teaching Gallery Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri
The Book Arts of Transformative Racial Justice Curated by Geoff Ward with Miranda Rectenwald and Jessi Cerutti, a companion exhibition to Truths and Reckonings exploring the potential for reparative curatorial practices to attenuate legacies of racial violence.
February 10 – April 19, 2020 Julian Edison Department of Special Collections Olin Library St. Louis, Missouri
This catalogue was prepared to provide Teaching Gallery access to students in the Prison Education Project at Washington University in St. Louis. Special thanks to Meg Galindo for her assistance in producing this catalogue.
Contents Truth and Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice …….……. 3 Geoff Ward Catalogue: Selected Works in the Kemper Exhibition ……………….…………. 8 Truth and Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice The Book Arts of Transformative Racial Justice: Introduction ……….……. 41 Geoff Ward Selected Works Colores …………………………………………………………………….………. 41 Lilia Compadre Ashes to Ashes: A Homecoming Celebration for the Unburied …………. 44 Shirley Whitaker Those Left Out ………….……………………….…………………….…………. 49 Andrew Emke Settled: A Handbook ……………………….…….………………………..………. 53 Tia Blassingame
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Concurrently on view at the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections in Washington University’s Olin Library is Truths and Reckonings: The Book Arts of Transformative Racial Justice, an installation of book art from Special Collections, curated by Geoff Ward with Miranda Rectenwald and Jessi Cerutti, including works by students in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. For details visit https://library.wustl.edu/exhibitions/.
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This Teaching Gallery exhibition is curated by Geoff Ward, associate professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies in Arts & Sciences, in conjunction with his seminar “Monumental Anti-Racism," offered in spring 2020.
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Teaching Gallery, Kemper Art Museum Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com
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The Art of Transformative Racial Justice
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Kara Walker (American, b. 1969). The Bush, Skinny, and De-boning, from Edition No. 19, 2002. Painted stainless steel in 3 parts, 29/100, 5 3/4 x 5 1/2 x 3/4", 4 1/2 x 4 1/8 x 3/4", and 5 3/4 x 6 x 3/4". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Peter Norton, 2015. 61.2015 a-c
Frederick B. Schell (American, d. 1905) The plantation police, or homeguard, examining passes on the road leading to the levee of the Mississippi River Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, July 11, 1863. 9 Ă— 14" (plate) Engraving. James E. and Joan Singer Schiele Print Collection, Rare Book Collections, Washington University in St. Louis.
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Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960) Selections from the portfolio Runaways, 1993. (Detail, page 8) Lithographs, 30/45, 16 x 12" each. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, Nathan Cummings Fund and Art Acquisition Fund, 1996. WU 1996.01.09, .05, .02, .07, .08, .04
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John Scholten Photography Studio, St. Louis. Portraits of Archer Alexander, c.1870–71. Black-and-white photographs. 4 1/4 x 2 1/2" and 4 x 2 1/2" William Greenleaf Eliot Personal Papers, University Archives, Washington University in St. Louis.
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Kara Walker (American, b. 1969) and Klaus BĂźrgel (German, b. 1958). Golddigger, 2003. 22k gold and mixed media, 10 1/16 x 16 x 16" overall. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Peter Norton, 2015. 36.2015
Attached plaque reads: fig. c This elaborate device, perhaps the creation of an inventive plantation Master whose finest wench was prone to digress- features three tiers of bells rising high enough in the air to easily tangle in the thick bush of the Southern regions. Once ensnared, the panicked and overburdened Slave hoarse from hollering all her days, and drenched in musky sweat, would proceed to buck and twist and in so doing alert the slumbering townsfolk to her imminent and daring trespass to freedom 12
East Wall (detail), Teaching Gallery, Kemper Art Museum Geoff Ward, 2020
West Wall, Teaching Gallery, Kemper Art Museum Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com
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Thomas Nast (American, b. Germany, 1840–1902) Dedicated to the Chicago Convention Harper’s Weekly, September 3, 1864. 9 1/4 × 13 3/4" (plate). Engraving. James E. and Joan Singer Schiele Print Collection, Rare Book Collections, Washington University in St. Louis. Julian Edison Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries.
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Thomas Nast (American, b. Germany, 1840–1902 ). Patience on a Monument, Harper’s Weekly, October 10, 1868. 13 3/4 x 9 1/8" (plate). Engraving. James E. and Joan Singer Schiele Print Collection, Rare Book Collections, Washington University in St. Louis. Julian Edison Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries.
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Cropped image of the lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson on 25 May 1911 in Okemah, Oklahoma. Gelatin silver print. Real photo postcard. 5 1/2 x 3 1/2. Printed and distributed in 1911. Wikimedia Commons
Cropped image of a postcard of the Duluth lynching, June 15, 1920. Wikimedia Commons
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Digital Montage: Lynching Parties
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Art & Artifacts in Context Selections of Related News from Missouri and Southern Illinois
Visitors survey news articles, Teaching Gallery, Kemper Art Museum Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com
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Front page of The Weekly Caucasian (April 20, 1872), a newspaper in Lexington, MO, on the western edge of the Little Dixie region of Missouri. The weekly was published in the immediate post-Emancipation period (1866-1875), explicitly waving the banner of “white supremacy,” and representing the racial politics of the Redeemers – white southern Democrats who organized against Reconstruction and to reassert white racial dominance.
19 Note: Newspaper images are sourced from Newspapers.com unless otherwise indicated.
“He Was Very Angry,” St. Joseph Daily News (St. Joseph, Missouri), June 4, 1896
“Autos Defy Death, Coast ‘Nigger Hill,’” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), April 10, 1905
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“Dogs Lost,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis), June 20, 1933 .
“The Nigger Dog,” The Sedalia Democrat (Sedalia, Missouri), May 6, 1901.
“Nigger Legislator Honored,” The Democrat-Argus (Caruthersville, Missouri), April 17, 1925. 21
“Diagram of That Section of Illinois Capital Ruled by the Mob, Friday Night Showing Circuitous Route Taken by Rioters From the Jail to Negroes’ Quarters,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis), August 16, 1908
John N. Popham, “Gov. Wright Bids Negroes Be Quiet,” The New York Times (New York), May 10, 1948 22
“‘The Nigger’ at Suburban,” The St. Louis Star (St. Louis), June 25, 1911.
“Negroes Whipped and Ordered Off,” The St. Louis Republic (St. Louis), March 20, 1901.
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“How they Depopulated ‘Coontown.’ A Couple of Notes that Scared Off the Negro Residents of West Plains”. Page 8 of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), September 20, 1903.
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Lewis Hine (American, 1874–1940). Untitled, c. 1920. Gelatin silver contact print, 5 x 4". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Nicholas Vahlkamp, 1994. WU 1994.13
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Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933). Mrs. Annie Blackman holding baby Felicia inside her sharecropper cabin, near Selma, Alabama, 1965, printed later. Gelatin silver print, 8 x 11 7/8". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Jan and Ronald Greenberg, 2012. WU 2012.0010.0008
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Digital Montage: Apartheid Stills 27
Madeline Osborne (American, life dates unknown). Untitled (Belle Glade, Florida), 1945. Gelatin silver print, 8 1/4 x 10". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, St. Louis Printmarket Fund, 1993. WU 1993.6
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Rashid Johnson (American, b. 1977). Thurgood in the Hour of Chaos, from the portfolio America America, 2009. Photolithograph, 47/50, 29 5/8 x 22". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Exit Art, 2013. WU 2013.0001.0006
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Howardena Pindell (American, b. 1943). Selected stills from Free, White and 21, 1980. Color video with sound, transferred to digital file, 12:15 min. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, Bixby Fund, 2012. WU 2012.0007
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Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960). Untitled (Two White/Two Black), 1992. (Detail, front cover) Portfolio of 4 prints: softground etching, aquatint, spit bite, and sugarlift, 25 1/8 x 17 1/2" each. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, Charles H. Yalem Art Fund, 1997. WU 1997.04–.05, .08–.09
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Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933). A young demonstrator wrapped in a flag protests racism at the Selma march; behind him Father Smith of San Antonio, 1965, printed 2019. Black-and-white reproduction, 8 x 11 15/16". Courtesy Bruce Davidson / Magnum Photos.
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Photograph from Documenting Ferguson digital repository Washington University in St. Louis
Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933). Arrest of a demonstrator in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963, printed later. Gelatin silver print, 8 x 11 15/16". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Jan and Ronald Greenberg, 2012. WU 2012.0010.0004
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Photograph from Documenting Ferguson digital repository Washington University in St. Louis
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Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933). The police and the army escort the Selma Freedom Marchers led by Martin Luther King Jr., 1965, printed 2019. Black-and-white reproduction, 8 x 11 15/16". Courtesy Bruce Davidson / Magnum Photos.
Photograph, Documenting Ferguson digital repository Washington University in St. Louis
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Photograph, Documenting Ferguson digital repository Washington University in St. Louis
Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987). Birmingham Race Riot, from the portfolio X + X (Ten Works by Ten Painters), 1964. Screen print, 219/500, 20 x 24". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University acquisition, 1970. WU 4233 E
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Photograph from Documenting Ferguson digital repository Washington University in St. Louis
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Photograph from Documenting Ferguson digital repository Washington University in St. Louis
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Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds (American, b. 1954) Telling Many Magpies, Telling Black Wolf, Telling Hachivi, 1989. Screen print on 2 joined sheets, 5/50, 72 1/2 x 45". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, 1992. WU 1992.21
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Henry Howe (American, 1816–1893) Robert Telfer (active 1849–1857) Heroism of a Pioneer Woman Historical Collections of the Great West, published 1860. “In the meantime his heroic wife was busily engaged in defending the door against the efforts of the only remaining Indian, whom she so severely wounded, with the ax, that he was soon glad to retire.” Hand-colored engraving. Julian Edison Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries.
St. Louis County Marker Outside the St. Louis County Police Headquarters, Clayton, MO “The county was first visited by white colonists when missionary priests, Illinois French, and Kaskaskla and Tamaroa Indians settled the temporary village of Des Peres, 1700-03." Erected in 1955 by the State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission. Digital image courtesy of Geoff Ward, 2019.
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The Book Arts of Transformative Racial Justice Julian Edison Department of Special Collections John M. Olin Library, Washington University in St. Louis Curated by Geoff Ward with Miranda Rectenwald and Jessi Cerutti
Colores: the Latino landscape of St. Louis by Lilia Compadre, Washington University in St. Louis, University Libraries 41
The Book Arts of Transformative Racial Justice A companion exhibit to the Teaching Gallery at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Truths and Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice, exploring the potential for reparative curatorial practices to attenuate legacies of racial violence.
Guest curator Geoff Ward (associate professor of African and African American Studies) designed Truths and Reckonings as a “pop-up” memorial museum, using groupings of artworks, illustrations, and other material culture to support understanding and commemoration of legacies of racial violence, hopefully deepening commitments to redress and the realization equal justice. Exemplified by museums addressing the Holocaust, enslavement, and other atrocities, memorial museums aim to translate education and commemoration around past injustice into ethical commitment to a just present and future. In this exhibit, artist’s books addressing histories of racial violence and related legacies of social, economic and political exclusion are showcased. All of the exhibited works come from the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections at John M. Olin Library, many focus on St. Louis, and the majority were produced by Washington University faculty and students. Like the Teaching Gallery exhibition, which features art works from the museum’s permanent collection alongside objects from Olin Library, this companion exhibit is also meant to feature the range and depth of materials in Washington University’s collections we can draw upon to understand and address these locally and globally pressing social issues.
FEBRUARY 10 – APRIL 19, 2020 Olin Library, Julian Edison Department of Special Collections Truths and Reckonings: The Book Art of Transformative Racial Justice is curated by Geoff Ward with Miranda Rectenwald and Jessi Cerutti.
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“Those left out” (Detail), by Andrew Emke, Washington University Library. 43
Ashes to Ashes: A Homecoming Celebration for the Unburied Shirley Ann Whitaker, MD, MPH (Connecticut River Valley: SAW Press, 2018)
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Left: Introduction, Above: Tree etching on handmade paper engraved with names of thousands of black victims of racial terror lynchings, Ashes to Ashes A Homecoming Celebration for the Unburied, Whitaker, Shirley Ann, MD, MPH (Saw Press)
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Excerpt: Ashes to Ashes A Homecoming Celebration for the Unburied, Whitaker, Shirley Ann, MD, MPH (Saw Press) 46
Excerpt: Ashes to Ashes A Homecoming Celebration for the Unburied, Whitaker, Shirley Ann, MD, MPH (Saw Press) 47
Excerpt: Ashes to Ashes A Homecoming Celebration for the Unburied, Whitaker, Shirley Ann, MD, MPH (Saw Press) 48
Those Left Out Andrew Emke 2004
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Excerpts: Emke, Andrew, “Those left out,” Washington University Library. 50
Excerpts: Emke, Andrew, “Those left out,” Washington University Library.
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Excerpts: Emke, Andrew, “Those left out,” Washington University Library.
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Settled: A Handbook Tia Blassingame (Primrose Press, 2015)
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Exhibitions and catalogue produced in conjunction with Julian Edison Department of Special Collections, Olin Library, and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
This catalogue was prepared for the students in the Prison Education Project at Washington University in St. Louis.