MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON PORTRAIT OF COURAGE: GENTILESCHI, WILEY, AND THE STORY OF JUDITH

By StyleMagazine.com - Newswire

Two paintings created 400 years apart raise contemporary issues through a historical lens. Both depict the Old Testament story of Judith slaying Holofernes.

Artemisia Gentileschi’s 17th-century Judith and Holofernes and Kehinde Wiley’s 21st-century Judith and Holofernes continue their national tour at the MFAH. Portrait of Courage: Gentileschi, Wiley, and the Story of Judith places the two paintings in dialogue with one another, revealing shared narratives and ideas across time and culture.

The subject of the paintings comes from the Old Testament Book of Judith. A Jewish town is under attack by the Assyrian army, led by the general Holofernes. Judith, a courageous local widow, dresses in finery and visits the enemy camp under the pretense of helping Holofernes defeat the Israelites. Enchanted by Judith’s beauty, Holofernes invites her to dinner, and after he falls asleep she severs his head with his own sword. The Assyrians flee, and the Jewish people are liberated.

The story of Judith and Holofernes—the vulnerable rising to slay a hostile invader, the oppressed overthrowing the oppressor—holds enduring appeal. Over the centuries, Judith has been variously interpreted as a virtuous young woman, a seductive femme fatale, and a brave heroine by artists from Botticelli, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio to Klimt. In depicting a woman’s act of courageous defiance, the paintings by Italian artist Gentileschi and American artist Wiley both address timeless issues of gender, race, violence, oppression, and social power.

Portrait of Courage: Gentileschi, Wiley, and the Story of Judith / January 25–April 16, 2023. For more information visit mfah.org

The Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) Arts Network and Fund - also known as “BANF” – announced its new round of funding to artists in Houston’s Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Middle

The Rebirth in Action exhibition, organized by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, expands the notion of a monument to include the living community represented by the legacy residents of Houston Freedmen’s Town. In the Freedmen’s Town community, legacy residents provide the cornerstone of a historical lineage to emancipation and its founding freed black community. As a container of these histories, each legacy member embodies a facet of Houston Freedmen’s Town. Within this rich context, the exhibition will center on equitable collaboration and engagement to create resource-generating opportunities for the legacy residents even as long-standing infrastructure and cultural heritage investments are being made in their community. In conjunction with the feasibility plan, artistic activations by local and national artists—including an exhibition by Theaster Gates and an exhibition highlighting innovative Black artists of Houston—will seek to ignite public imagination around the

Eastern, and other communities of color. The 2023 BIPOC Arts Network and Fund Artist Awards will invest $1 million in artists who reflect Greater Houston’s artist community’s diversity and potential. BIPOC artists living in the

9-county region of Greater Houston are invited to see complete guidelines and eligibility requirements and apply by visiting the BANF website at https://houstonbanf.org. The applications are open from January 10th to February 17th of 2023. This round’s 25 Awardees will each receive up to $20,000. The funds honor a legacy of service to our communities and are not tied to any specific project. The second round will open in the Fall of 2024.

This round of the 2023 BIPOC Arts Network and Fund Artist Awards is part of the larger BANF strategy that so far has provided over $2M in direct resources to BIPOC art organizations and creative collectives impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and other recent crises.

Read more at: StyleMagazine.com rich stories embedded within Freedmen’s Town. The Rebirth in Action exhibition will honor and support legacy residents while preserving and archiving their histories—ingrained within the historic brick streets—as a memorial in Freedmen’s Town. Throughout his career, Theaster Gates has commanded and reoriented our understanding of black labor, materiality, and place. His work offers a poignant lens through which we are asked to consider the true power of black spaces, which, although historically underappreciated and under-resourced, hold deep resonance as sites of resilience, restitution, and redemption.

The Rebirth in Action exhibition will commence with a series of town hall and community stakeholder meetings to identify the immediate needs and values of the legacy residents. This effort, which connects deeply to Gates’ artistic investments and explorations throughout his practice, seeks to make explicit connections between materiality, labor, community, and spirituality. "The Rebirth in Action project is an example of how social innovation in black communities develops out of precarity and how a museum can work hand-in-hand with community partners to engage in restorative justice and develop deeper community engagement through the lens of art, healing, and community investment," says CAMH Deputy Director Seba R. Suber. "The historical and spiritual legacy of Houston’s Freedmen’s Town recontextualizes and amplifies the resiliency of black communities and its descendants." The project will create new opportunities for local artists and re-artists-in-residence at Freedmen’s Town. It will be curated for projects that highlight, honor, and animate the histories and stories of Freedmen’s Town. Each residency will culminate in a public presentation of a project within Freedmen’s Town. In line with HFTC’s goals, research fellows will generate new research that connects artists and the general public to the legacies of Freedmen’s Town. They will act as research guides for artistic activations and the CAMHLAB artists-in-residence, connecting each artist to the resources they need to create their work.

The Houston Public Library Director, Dr. Rhea Brown Lawson, is "proud to partner with HFTC in the shared goals of protecting, preserving, and amplifying the rich history of African Americans in the region by utilizing our shared resources right here in the Freedmen’s Town Heritage District to engage the public." "Houston Public Works (HPW) is proud to partner with HFTC and CAMH through this project," says HPW Director Carol Haddock. "By creating a schematic feasibility plan with Concept Engineers, Inc., we can ensure future developments are respectful of and complementary to Freedmen’s Town's heritage." We will be able to preserve its history while enhancing the area for a more resilient future.

For more information, visit CAMH.org.