Resistance as Power: A Curatorial Response to “Under the Feet of Jesus”

September 7, 2019 to February 23, 2020

Under the Feet of Jesus, the UO’s 2019-20 Common Reading book selection, inspired the JSMA’s Common Seeing theme, Resistance as Power. This exhibition included two works on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Farm Workers’ Altar, 1967, by Emanuel Martinez and Braceros, 1960, by Domingo Ulloa) that provided historical and cultural touchstones for the 1995 novel and contemporary works from the JSMA’s permanent collection (including recent acquisitions by Ester Hernández, V. Maldonado, and Lilliam Nieves). Under the Feet of Jesus author Helena Maria Viramontes toured the gallery with faculty and students in October 2019. During Winter Term 2020, visiting artist and Latinx cultural worker Gilda Posada led Latinx Scholars ARC students in a screen-printing workshop in response to the exhibition’s themes of identity, cultural heritage, workers’ rights, and social justice.

Left: Alison Saar (American, b. 1956). Sorrow’s Kitchen, 2020. Wood, tin, acrylics, spray tar, ceiling tin and linoleum. 28 x 12 x 10 in. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. L2020:110.7

Bottom, right: Hank Willis Thomas (American, b. 1976). An All Colored Cast, 2019. UV print on retroflective vinyl. 98 x 132 ¼ in. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. L2020:110.1a-c

LOOK. Listen. Learn. Act.

January 9 to June 14, 2021

The 2020-21 Common Seeing responded to the UO’s anti-racism initiative “Listen. Learn. Act;” the novel This is My America by Kimberly Johnson, UO Vice Provost for the Division of Undergraduate Education and Student Success; and the New York Times Magazine’s The 1619 Project. The exhibition included powerful works by Hank Willis Thomas and Alison Saar from the collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer, and by Lezley Saar and Kara Walker from the JSMA’s permanent collection. Thomas’s An All Colored Cast featured a grid of 36 archival headshots of Black, Latinx, and Asian-American entertainers obscured beneath Andy Warhol-inspired blocks of color. These portraits could only be viewed when a directional external light, such as a camera flash, or specially filtered glasses were used. With this, Thomas critiqued Hollywood’s double-edged treatment of BIPOC performers.