The Portland Art Museum recently held a special exhibit Constructing Identity. According to the museum display:
“This exhibition aims to create a context for ideas about identity based on a wealth of representations by African-American artists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The works on display reveal the dynamic nature, narratives, and impulses that constitute the full humanity of the African-American experience.”
According to the museum:
“In 21st-century America, questions of race and identity are being explored as never before. This exploration has prompted many artists of color to investigate what constitutes identity, community, and the idea of a so-called post-racial society.”
The 100 works in the exhibit were organized into categories: Spirit, Gender, Abstraction, Community, Faces, and The Land.
Abstraction
With regard to Abstraction, the display states:
“It has been said that abstraction is the shorthand of expression. It is the percolation of culture into forms that present the culture’s essence. Work related to the theme of Abstraction illustrates some of the ways in which African-American artists incorporate Western notions of abstraction into their work, as well as a sampling of pre- and post-colonial African aesthetics. Abstraction is seen here as a series of songs without words.”
Shown above: Blue Quilt by Marita Dingus (2002). Fabric.
Shown above: Fish and Bird by Charles Searles (1998). Acrylic on paper.
Shown above: Sacred Space V (2005), Sacred Space VIII (2005), Sacred Space X (2012), and Sacred Space XIV (2012) by Martina Johnson-Allen. Mixed media and construction.
Gender
With regard to Gender, the display states:
“The works related to the theme of Gender speak to the significance and differences among representations of African-American women. The concept of gender is central to how the subjects of these works are looked at and interpreted. African-Americans, and to a large part women in general are presented as ‘images’ rather than active ‘creators’ of self.”
Shown above: Missouri C. by Charles White (1965). Etching on paper.
Shown above: Anthony Tightly Wrapped by Marita Dingus (2004). Mixed Media.
Shown above: Young Woman by Artis Lane (ca. 1985). Graphite on paper.
Shown above: Bred for Pleasure by Curlee Raven Holton (1995). Etching and monoprint.
Shown above: Circe by Romare Bearden (1978). Wool and cotton tapestry.
Shown above: Glory by Elizabeth Catlett (1981). Bronze.
Shown above: The Emancipation Approximation (Scene 18) by Kara Walker (1999-2000). Screenprint.
Community
With regard to Community, the display states:
“African-American identity has been constructed through a process that is specific to American history. Works related to the theme of Community reveal some of the aesthetic direction that we use to define this identity. They present physical spaces, historical events, and emotional expression built on a shared foundation of African heritage.”
Shown above: Untitled (Boy on a Bench) by Samella Lewis (1924). Lithograph.
Shown above: The Triumph of B.L.S. by Vincent Smith (1974). Etching on paper.
Shown above: 200 Years by Allen Edmunds (2008). Lithograph.
Shown above: Father is Home by Ulysses Marshall (1994). Painting with collage.
Shown above: Stories My Grandmother Told Me by Barbara Bullock (2012). Mixed media.
Shown above: Man Shortage by Calvin Burnett (1945). Ink on paper.
Shown above: Wash Day by Rex Goreleigh (1979). Oil on linen.
Faces
With regard to Faces, the display states:
“African Americans have long been judged against a set of metrics that celebrate another cultural group. Black faces have never been seen as equivalent to European classical standards of beauty. The Faces theme is presented not so much to compare and contrast ‘our beauty’ with ‘their beauty,’ but to present the characteristic and defining elements of our faces.”
Shown above: Value Pyramid by Natalie Erin Brown (2015). Wood burning on panels.
Spirit
With regard to Spirit, the display states:
“For African Americans, spirit is manifest in the openness to the ecstatic potency of being. Spirit as identity within our communities exists in both measurable and intangible ways of interaction and projection.”
Shown above: The Rehearsal by Avel de Knight (1955).
Shown above: After Sunday Service by Laura Wheeler-Waring (ca. 1940).
Shown above: Come Unto Me by Richmond Barthé (1930). Bronze.
Shown above: Cycle of Abundance by John Dowell (1959). Acrylic on canvass.
Shown above: Guitar by Mr. Imagination (Gregory Warmack). Plaster, bottle caps, string, and found object.
Shown above: Intentions and Improvisations by Moe Brooker (2012). Oil stick on board.
Shown above: The Whirling Dance by Barbara Bullock (1985). Gouache and gold leaf on paper.
Shown above: Jazz Series—Quintet by Paul Keene (1983). Charcoal on paper.
Shown above: African Trader by Herman “Kofi” Bailey (1970). Charcoal on paper
Shown above: Study II (Adam and Eve) by Joyce Scott (2009). Glass beads and thread.
Land
With regard to The Land, the display states:
“The Land encompasses both nature and home. It offers a sense of place that is essential to defining one’s self, when one has no place and has been taken from one’s home. As people tasked to work the land but rarely able to own it, African Americans have maintained a special relationship with the land. The land has a central place in African-American art: the works related to this theme describe the sins and salvation of our presence in America.”
Shown above: Menemsha by Lois Mailou Jones (ca. 1940).
Shown above: View of Gloucester St. by Allan Freelon (1928). Oil on boa
Shown above: Cows at Rest by Ralph Chessé (1947). Oil on canvas.
Shown above: Landscape Majestic by Mickalene Thomas (2011). Woodblock, silkscreen, and digital print collage.
Shown above: The Delaware by James Brantley (2012). Oil on canvass.