Fifty years ago, the Congress of the United States passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The bill came before the Senate in February 1964, survived a fifty-four–day filibuster, and was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2. The struggle for racial equality had been waged for decades, and it continued to be fought throughout the 1960s. Visual artists mounted their own insurgence, acting on their commitment to the belief that progress could be won by changing the way people see things. In observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the momentous legislation, Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties, on view August 30–December 14, 2014, presents one hundred works by sixty-six artists who merged their art practice with their political activism on behalf of civil rights. The exhibition, on loan from the Brooklyn Museum, is among the few to explore how painting, sculpture, graphic art, and photography not only responded to the political and social turmoil of the era but also helped to influence its direction.
During the dramatic and often violent social and cultural upheaval of the 1960s, many artists—representing all races and ethnicities—aligned themselves with the burgeoning civil rights movement to address the issues of the time in their art and, often, to participate in acts of protest. From this crucible emerged powerful works that were dramatically wide-ranging in aesthetic approach, encompassing abstraction, assemblage, figural work, minimalism, pop art, and photography. The exhibition explores how these works distilled ideas and actions into forceful emblems of identity and liberation. Creating works informed by the experience of inequality, conflict, and empowerment, the artists tested the political viability of their styles and developed subjects attentive to resistance, self-definition, and blackness.
Organized thematically, the exhibition includes sections titled Integrate/Educate, American Nightmare, Presenting Evidence, Politicizing Pop, Black Is Beautiful, Womanhood, Global Liberation, and Beloved Community. Among the works on view are Jack Whitten's Birmingham, 1964, which he created in reaction to the violence
in that city, using layers of black paint, crushed aluminum foil, and sheer stocking mesh to reveal and obscure a newspaper photograph of the confrontations between protesters and police in Birmingham. Whitten said of this work, "Every time I've experienced physical violence, I've had a visual response."
Other highlights of Witness include Jacob Lawrence's response to the controversy surrounding school desegregation in the South with Soldiers and Students, one of several compositions by the artist to focus on demonstrations and violence; Barkley Hendricks's Lawdy Mama, which confers the awe and reverence once accorded Christian altar-pieces on the figure of a beautiful woman crowned with a large, halo-like Afro; AfriCOBRA co-founder Jae Jarrell's Urban Wall Suit, a fabric suit inspired by activist murals and urban graffiti that anticipates the current confluence of fashion and art; and Joe Overstreet's The New Jemima, which reclaims a negative stereotype in bold fashion.
The New York artist Benny Andrews embedded coarse fabrics into the dense paint surface of Witness, one of two paintings by him in the exhibition, along with other works in his Autobiographical Series, begun after a visit to his native Georgia in 1965. He explained that he adopted this technique to amplify the authenticity of these images of poor, rural African Americans: "I didn't want to lose my sense of rawness. Where I am from, the people are very austere. We have big hands. We have ruddy faces. We wear rough fabrics. . . .These are my textures."
Photographers represented in the exhibition, including Richard Avedon, Bruce Davidson, Roy DeCarava, Gordon Parks, and Moneta Sleet Jr., captured the events of the civil rights movement as both documentarians and activists, often altering public opinion with their images in newspapers and magazines such as Ebony and Life.
Among the other artists featured in the exhibition are Norman Rockwell, Charles White, Faith Ringgold, May Stevens, James Rosenquist, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Elizabeth Catlett, Mark di Suvero, Sam Gilliam, Leon Polk Smith, Mel Edwards, Virginia Jaramillo, Philip Guston, David Hammons, Betye Saar, and Jeff Donaldson. Also represented in the exhibition are works by Charles Alston, Merton Simpson, Norman Lewis, and Romare Bearden, all members of Spiral, a group of New York artists who collectively explored how their practices could engage with the struggle for civil rights.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. Please see the calendar of events for detailed information about associated gallery tours, lectures, a performance, and an artists' talk by Jae Jarrell and Wadsworth Jarrell, all free and open to everyone.
Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties was organized by the Brooklyn Museum, and made possible by the Ford Foundation.The exhibition's presentation at the Hood was generously supported by Claire Foerster and Daniel S. Bernstein, Class of 1987; Kate and Yaz Krehbiel, Class of 1991,Thayer 1992; and the Leon C. 1927, Charles L. 1955, and Andrew J. 1984 Greenebaum Fund.
Related Exhibitions
- Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties
- Still We Rise: Women of Color Existence/Resistance in Contemporary Art
- Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African American Photography: Art and Activism
Related Stories
- Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties
- Community of Learners: Many Participate at the Hood Museum of Art
- Witness: A Recent Acquisition's Transformative Engagement
- Alumni Voices: Dartmouth in the Civil Rights Era | Three Perspectives
- Alumni Voices: Crishuana Williams '12 | Florian Jenkins and The Life of Malcolm X (1972) at Dartmouth College
- Recent Acquisitions: Photographs of Baseball Legend Jackie Robinson