Juneteenth: Art Exhibition Explores Black Stories Through African American Art

Juneteenth: Art Exhibition Explores Black Stories Through African American Art

In commemoration of Juneteenth, the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum in St Petersburg, Florida, United States, is exploring African-American stories through Black art with an exhibition that combines the past and present in revealing stories of racism, oppression, hope, resilience, and identity. 

The exhibition, titled ‘Reverberations’, will run till August 29 at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art, and features Black artists from the locality, the Weekly Challenger reports.

The organizers explained that the art exhibition was conceived as a vehicle to convey the highs and lows of the lived experiences of Black people in America, spark a conversation on race and racism, and highlight themes of family and community as well as marginalization and prejudice.

The exhibition features over sixty pieces of art spanning several mediums. Of these, one piece that stands out is a self-portrait by artist Jeremy Bell. The painting was made with hot wax over wood along with acrylics and spray paint. But the most profound aspect of it is the sense of individualization it exudes, starting the “conversation of Black identity”, as it was made as a composite of hundreds of photos the artist took of himself every day so that he could be familiar with how people see him.

Aaron Henderson’s “400 Years” is another remarkable piece on display at the exhibition that speaks to African American history and experience. It is gouache (an opaque watercolor) on paper painting that depicts a woman holding the book “400 Years 1619-2019,” which signifies the time between the British warship, White Lion, exchanging 20 African slaves for supplies, and this event being recognized as the beginning of the slave trade in what is now the United States of America.

“We can talk about this being the beginning of slavery in America, or we can talk about the fact that before 1619, Blacks actually do have a history that predates slavery, that predates slaves in America or Blacks in America,” Desmond Clark, the exhibition’s curator, said. “That history is not something that was well documented, and we’ve had to find ways of discovering it.”

Speaking about why preparation for the exhibition had to be hurried amidst the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Clark told the Weekly Challenger that normally, an exhibition of this size would take about 12 to 18 months to set up, but due to pandemic that ate into much of 2020, they did not begin until January, meaning they had just five months for procuring artworks for the exhibition, negotiating and working out contracts, and getting a proper host as the Woodson Museum does not have the space for such a large scale project.

“That speaks to, in large part, the way Blacks exist and have existed for a long time as well,” Clark reflected. “Because they’ve never really had the luxury of having a lot of capacity or a lot of resources, and so they have always had to do what they could do with as little as possible, and you learn to plan today for tomorrow.”

“Can you hear the song that has been playing for over four centuries? Can you feel how it vibrates our nation? Can you see how it has affected your neighbor, your friends, and your family? These artists live this every day. They weave the stories of past BIPOC people with their own. They inform and shape the art and actions that will come after. The rich history passed down for generations displayed in the images in this exhibition do not just echo; they reverberate,” Clark expounded to further explain the scope and purpose of the exhibition.

All comments

Leave a Reply