Martin Puryear’s Selfwill forever be a wonder. It is sculpted from wood and has a
rich black lustre and is said to be hollow inside and the temptation to touch and
feel it was to resist. At a glance its shape is that of a thumb. Move one step to the
left or right and its precise shape changes. Move another step and it changes
again.
The amorphous nature of Puryear’s creation gives it fluidity in character and
meaning. Is the “self” of the title referring to one’s inner state as whole in form
and colour but also constantly changing? Or is it a vision of “Blackness” as a
reality shared by multitudes no two of whom are the same in the same way no
two viewpoints of the sculpture are the same? Or not.
The ambiguity adds to the fascination and to what in total is a most exhilarating
exhibition of works by African Americans by Tate Modern called Soul of a Nation.
This is the first time a major survey of works by African American artist is shown
in the UK and only covers 20 years from 1963, the year of the great March on
Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King.
Curators Zoe Whitely and Mark Godfrey have subdivided a mass of 150 works
from as many as 60 to occupy 12 rooms at the gallery. They also set an austere
tone for the exhibition, as if to prepare the visitor’s mind, placing five screens atthe entrance with each one playing, on a loop, speeches any luminaries including
King, Malcolm X and James Baldwin.
The eloquence and gravity each speaker brings to topics on Black life and
struggles is able to prime the mind and awaken emotions for an experience that
excites as well as it depresses and could dampen the spirit as well as it reaffirms
life, if not the necessity of art.
The first room is dedicated to Spiral formed in 1963 in New York by a group of
artists who tasked themselves with figuring out their place and by extension that
of the “black artist” in American society.
The group of 15 artists convened at Romare Bearden’s studio between 1963 and
1965 and agreed to present joint exhibitions but could not agree on common
aesthetic grounds, or the more pointed question, “Is there a Negro image?” posed
by member Norman Lewis.
Spiral’s final decision to make works solely in a monochrome palette proves to be
fruitful as it freed the artists from producing overtly political art by commitee in
favour of personal approaches and convictions.
Reginald Gammon’s Freedom Now depicts marchers chanting with placards held
up high, while Bearden’s collages are made from printed newspaper cutouts one
of which, The Conjuring Woman, portray a community healer.
Assemblage art is well represented not least by Betye Saar, John Outterbridge
and Noah Purifoy who started his practice with the wreckage he gathered fromthe streets after the Watts Rebellion of 1965, an approach that invests his work
with urgency as well as tragedy.
Purifoy’s Containment Series includes squares of welded metal whose visible
lines of joinery shares a wounded elegance with Kintsugi the Japanese technique
repairing breakage and its philosophy showing damage part of a thing’s essential
make up rather than something to disguise or could give shame.
Abstractions of colours and soggy-looking shapes crop around the figure of Miles
Davis in Jeff Donaldson’s painting, further intensifying the image of Davis in
midflow, eyes closed, cheeks puffed with air and fingers over valves and pistons,
while the bell is a deep pool of colours that may well be the source of the
abstractions.
Donaldson was a member of the Organisation of Black American Culture (OBAC)
formed in 1967 in Chicago, the art collective who created the Wall of Respect as
public tributes to “Black Heroes” for which they revamped an abandoned building
and divided it into seven sections – Jazz, Theater, Sports, Statesmen, Literature,
Rhythm & Blues and Religion –
The photography section is dominated by the work of Kamoinge, a collective of
photographers who in the 1970s published four volumes of The Black
Photographers Annual and has become the most significant publication for
African American photographers of that era.
Helmed by Joe Crawford, each of the 4 volumes featured works by, at the time,
newcomers like Ming Smith and Elaine Tomlin as well as portfolios by established
names which included James VanDerZee, Roy DeCarava and Moneta Sleet whosephotograph of Coretta Scott King taken at Dr King’s funeral earned him a Pulitzer
in 1969.
Toni Morrison, Gordon Parks and John A. Williams each wrote magisterial
introductions to the volumes of Annual as did James Baldwin who closed his own
essay as if speaking from a pulpit:
“We have been through the fire and we know it and we have been tempered by
it, in order to endure a day that is coming, and in order to raise up future
generations: even as we were raised up. Nothing lasts forever, not even our
suffering, and we have everything to celebrate: ourselves”.
Decades of systematic discrimination from White run galleries, much of which is
discussed in the exhibition catalogue, have kept many of the artists and their
works from important galleries that would have deservedly raised their profiles
and value in the marketplace making Soul Of a Nation a much needed corrective.
Even more, its success could inspire substantial solo exhibitions by the featured
artists at Tate and other watchful galleries, giving the artists wider and overdue
recognition. That’s the hope.