The Art of Wrapping, Binding, and More

Wrapping, binding, evoke ancient religious rituals from Mesoamerica or far away countries like Egypt. Famous contemporary artists like Jean-Claude and Christo (who passed away this month), appealed by its aesthetic qualities, rejuvenated the practice on a grand scale. Closer to home, eleven artists who incorporate the symbolic gestures in their body of work have been selected by Bradley Sumrall, curator at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, for the exhibition Entwined: Ritual Wrapping and Binding in Contemporary Southern Art. Following its press release in February, the long awaited show is finally open to the public who can interact with more than fifty works including installations, sculptures and paintings.

After walking through a Southern decor of exuberant trees, the visitor reaches the first gallery lined up on both sides by three black knotted brooms hanging from the ceiling. At the other end, a couple of grinding stones decorated with a full length portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe cast in glass complete the funerary display. The objects-symbols reflect the cosmopolitan background of the artist. Raised in Mexico, Susan Plum was exposed to  Catholic religion, shamanism, and also Buddhism while travelling in South India. Luz y Solidaridad  created in memory of the victims of femicide in the vicinity of Juarez, Mexico, reaches well beyond borders, cultures and time. Through a process liken to alchemy, Ed Williford transforms found objects in thrift stores or hardware stores into magical creatures and abstract compositions. More than a dozen of his earthy colored works are displayed on pedestals and along the walls of his allotted space. Combining skills and imagination, the Mississippi artist recreates nature's perfection through his exoskeletons-like sculptures made with abandoned material revived through a laborious process of assembling, twisting, knotting, binding, staining, gluing, influenced by the discipline and rigor of minimalism.
In the next section, the three decorated brooms from Friendswood Brooms displayed on the wall illustrate a tradition born in the mid-eighteenth century while opposite, the installation from Elizabeth Shannon invites the visitor to reflect upon nature's bounty evoked by wood poles wrapped in fabric, growing on the wall like palmetto... with a twist: a black bird, a touch of red like blood, metal photogravure plates from Josephine Saccabo's studio for a horizon filled with hope. Re-Seeking Horizons conveys subtle hints more powerful than blunt statements. Sonya Yong James reminds us that white is also a color of mourning, and her tapestry draped along the whole length of the next passage is dedicated to the victims of the recent pandemic, police brutality and more. A detailed wall text describes the practice of  the fiber artist from Atlanta and its sources, material and spiritual. Sharon Kopriva' s Italian catholic background influences her work (graphite and collage) in which she depicts females like secular saints reaching a sort of ecstasy while discarding their bondage. The Red Headed Witness, 2020, is a portrait of  the recently deceased artist Nancy Redding Kienholz draped in a shroud made of white doves and two female torsos sculpted with coiled rope complete the display.
A solemn bust introduces Kristin Meyer's show which features more than a dozen of her smaller pieces compared to those selected for her exhibition Into the Light at Delgado Fine Arts Gallery or Sistema for Louisiana Contemporary last Summer. Gathering material, leaving it "ferment", wrapping, binding, are part of the process to create sculptures radiating spiritual energy. Pieces like Rob's Foot, 2018, or Eye, 2018, remind of votive offerings in Sicilian churches and Charon, 2016, with a title from the Greek mythology has also Voodoo connotations. The blending of references makes Meyers's practice well ensconced in the city known for its diverse heritage. Egg tempera, the medium for the five paintings from the multi-disciplinary artist Susan Jamison is fitting for the delicate pink lace decorations adorning perfectly smooth female bodies. Bound with pretty ribbons or in corset, surrounded by birds, butterflies or ... wolves, they belong to a dream or a fairy tale. As the works from  Jeffrey Cook (1961-2009) take more patina over the years they are more relevant than ever. Each piece deserves to be looked at as a link between its African roots, the city's history and current events. The exhibition ends on a bright note with the colored fiber art from Sarah Zapata. The Peruvian-American artist stated "I wanted to make work that's overtly female and overtly handmade. Like I am performing how I'm theoretically supposed to", revealing the deep personal and cultural conflicts that feed her practice.

One cannot avoid noticing that only two male artists are included in the show, most likely reflecting a gender disparity in the field of fiber art and also in the ritual act of wrapping and binding. Fiber art is still considered by too many a crafty occupation on the fringe of art (no pun intended). The exhibition with its informative wall texts shows that each individual practice is built on the artist's personal journey enriched by its cultural heritage. Featuring eleven artists, it does not feel like a group show due to the setting which allows to fully appreciate each of them, one at a time.
The exhibition is one of the compelling reasons to visit the Ogden ASAP.




                                           

photographs by the author:

Susan Plum "Luz y Solidaridad"

Kristin Meyers "Charon", 2016

Ed Williford "Articualated Sphere Over Perforated Platform", 2012

Listen

Post-war New York City saw the birth of abstract expressionism led by a group of white male artists. Norman Lewis, the only artist of color among them, is now considered the forebearer of African American abstraction. From then on, abstract enriched the vocabulary of artists who had to overcome the indifference, sometimes worse, the rejection not only from the art world but also from their own communities. Two years ago the Ogden Museum of Southern Art premiered a memorable exhibition Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art. This time, the more intimate display assembles the works of sixteen African American artists, each represented by one piece from the museum's permanent collection. What Music is Within: Black Abstraction from the Permanent Collection complements a solo show Melvin Edwards: Crossroads set in the main gallery on the fifth floor.

Colors hit you when you enter the space. How can such a busy group show fit in the small gallery? A second look reveals the carefully laid out display which includes a large drawing from
Ron Bechet surrounded by wall sculptures from John T. Scott and Kevin Cole facing the entrance, and on the right side, three geometric abstract compositions in conversation with three expressionist paintings across the room. When turning around, the visitor encounters a stunning draped canvas from Sam Gilliam and next to it a smaller "box" in shades of pink constructed by Jeffrey Cook. Clifton Webb's Totem, N.D., completes the show introduced by a wall text, a painting from Horton Humble, the youngest artist, member of Level Art Collective and a sculpture from Martin Payton profiled on the window's light in the hall.

This is a short description of the exhibition which warrants an in-depth look for the occasion to discover less famous artists like Merton Simpson or Moses Hogan who was better known as a pianist, conductor and composer. One can get lost in Forest Party, 1993, from the former, a textured rendition without focal point or look for the spiritual meaning of Turning Wheels, 1984, from the latter. Of course, local artists with their deep-rooted ties to music are well represented. John T. Scott was known to create his work while "jazz thinking" in his studio. His three pieces from the Ritual Cutter  series (1978) hung on the wall evoke instruments of torture, pain, tears, a song filled with sadness, and also of hope with colors bright like the sun. Music is a family affair for Martin Payton, brother of the famed trumpet player Nicholas and his sculptures often bear the name of  musicians, on view here Dexter, 1998, for Dexter Gordon. When I look to Ron Bechet's (related to Sydney) works, I hear Spirituals. Jeffrey Cook was a dancer for a period of time. Sam Gilliam is a fan of  Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Eugene Martin thought about becoming a jazz musician like his father and it shows in his jazzy composition illustrating the correspondence between rhythm and lines, melody and colors. Both Gilliam and Martin were connected in some ways with the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C., Robert Reed spent most of his career further North as a teacher at Yale University School of Art and  Arlington Weathers migrated from Guyana. The exhibition stretches not only geographically but also in time, representing fifty years of African American abstract art and its various styles from expressionist to geometric and color field.

Music needs to be heard, visual art needs to be seen and the exhibition is a great occasion to look at pieces of the permanent collection in the context of music. William T. Williams states that he was often asked:"Why are you making abstraction? It's not African American art" and he would answer "Jazz is the most abstract of all music. Music is totally abstract. How can you not say there's a tradition of abstraction."

photographs by the author:

view of the exhibition: 
Robert Reed "San Romano, Monticello, Brick II", 1982
John Barnes "Doe Poppin' II", 2015
Clifton Webb "Totem", N.D.

Eugene Martin "Geometric Abstract", 1999

Sam Gilliam "Drape Work", 1970

Artist's Legacy at Boyd Satellite

There is no better way to discover a city than to walk through its streets, looking at the architecture while learning about its history. To assimilate a city's culture requires a deeper involvement which includes getting acquainted with its artistic heritage, especially in New Orleans where Jeffrey Cook (1961-2009) was born and raised. His short career left a deep imprint on the city's art scene, and the exhibition at Boyd Satellite Gallery is the latest proof of this. A Nkisi for Jeffrey Cook is a "memorial and tribute" to the artist and gathers an extensive body of work, spanning from his debuts as a sculptor to his last pieces.

In the photograph under the title of the show, the artist appears serious and thoughtful. According to his peers, he was charismatic, humble and loyal to his family, friends and community. Starting in a clockwise fashion from the entrance, the exhibition is more or less organized in chronological order.  The overall display offers all shades of browns to blacks with occasional touches of color brought up by works like the first three wall pieces inspired by compositions from John T. Scott, Cook's teacher at Xavier University. Joseph Cornell's influence is also noticeable in the four "boxes" hung along the wall. Each tells a story. In search of his own language, the artist designed two geometric sculptures in painted wood, one of them with ladders, symbol of escape from reality to an imaginary world, according to Joan Miró. Jeffrey Cook's previous endeavor as a lead dancer for a Los Angeles dance company brought him to visit numerous countries from Europe to Asia. However, he never reached the shores of Africa. It is upon his return to New Orleans in the eighties, while visiting the French Quarter galleries, that he soaked in African art and embraced its soul. Most of the following pieces are made with what became his media of choice: cloth, wood, found objects, to create spiritual landscapes. Filled with artifacts gathered in the streets of New Orleans, most of the wall sculptures are of smaller sizes except three of them which could be called panels due to their dimensions while another pair is accompanied by preliminary drawings, proof of the artist's quest for aesthetic and content. All include recurrent symbols like brooms, children's blocks, chalk, ..., described in Andy Antipas's essay Jeffrey Cook: African Art and New Orleans as: "created objects that elude rational analysis, because they form a magical, ideographic vocabulary that is indecipherable without the artist's grimoire". A collection of statuettes made of black cloth secured with twine, like funerary objects, is displayed on individual shelves. Black birds are represented in many pieces. Born from ancestral African beliefs about the soul's future after death, the symbol is also found in Song of Silence. The poignant sculpture made to commemorate two of Cook's friends killed in a shooting features the barrel of two shotguns transformed into birds. Another moving piece is about the holocaust. With pieces of rags and strings, the artist built two expressive figurines full of sorrow. Two collages and an abstract painting are reminders of a less well known side of the artist who was also a painter. The eclectic material of the center piece appears to have been collected after hurricane Katrina. The sculpture, an unstable fragile assemblage of pulleys, pieces of wood and varied objects, evokes destruction and a world in turmoil.

Most of the pieces belong to friends and/or collectors and the busy display misses information about their titles or dates. However, pamphlets and essays written by peers are available at the gallery, providing a window on the artist's work and persona. The exhibition is appropriately called a memorial and includes personal possessions like a weathered bicycle and large pieces of wood from a childhood's tree house built by Cook and his friends in their Central City neighborhood. The artist started to collect everyday objects almost two decades before the disaster struck the city, catching its soul through the debris found in the streets and transforming them into relics through his sculptures. We are made of our past, and Cook went far back in time and also places to find his, digging into his roots from Africa to the Caribbean and fill his works with "spiritual and ritualistic qualities". Four African sculptures embedded in the show emphasize this, so does a quote from Antipas: "... African art was created as spirit guides, to venerate the ancestors, to encourage clan and tribal social order, to protect the community and individuals,... and most importantly, to protect against the supernatural... Jeffrey's pieces are themselves a kind of talisman to help negotiate the fearsome supernatural powers which surround us".

I previously saw a few works from Cook at various venues like the New Orleans Museum of Art or the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Going through the show allows not only to get a grasp of his body of work but also of his connections to the city's art scene.
The exhibition which takes place during the Triennial Prospect.4 and also at the start of the city's Tricentennial commemoration is the occasion to measure the breadth of Jeffrey Cook's legacy.

photographs by the author

Painting the Blues

The Blues in New Orleans is played, sung. This month at the NOMA, "Beyond the Blues" is the title of the exhibition showing the paintings from the Amistad Research Center " specialized in the history of African-American and other minority ethnic groups".

One hundred and fifty works have been selected from a rich collection and are displayed in several rooms organized in five categories: Inhabiting our world, Believing in Divinity, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Living in the Moment and Seeing with Candor. I chose to wander from room to room and enjoy the paintings from known or unknown painters. I was discovering most of them.

The works cover more than 120 years from the late nineteenth century painters and early twentieth century like Edward Bannister and Ossawa Tanner who were exposed to European influence and studied there, to the painters from the "New Negro Movement" in the 20s and 30s followed by more modern painters like Vincent Smith from Brooklyn represented by "Annie Lou loves Bill" done in 1960. In this painting he mixes collage and graffiti on a rough red background. It was standing out among the other artists, most of them represented by non controversial subjects, depicting winter like Driskell with "Winter Landscape" 1974, "Triborough Bridge" from Aaron Douglas, "Carnival" from Keith Morrison 1966, with Caribbean colors.

Sam Middleton is the closest to Jazz, I thought, with his spontaneous colors, lines, movements, splashes, represented in "Still Life" 1970 and "Beyond the Blues".

For the women, Clementine Hunter, whose work is considered "Folk Art", was present in a corner. I found the sculpture "Target" from Elizabeth Catlett very powerful, with the bronze head of an Afro-American male in the sight of a gun.

Other painters were inspired by the naive style from Haiti, like Ellis Wilson with his famous "Funeral Procession", 1954.

The star of the show was Jacob Lawrence with his series on the life of Toussaint L'Ouverture and Haiti's history.
Forty one paintings, gouache on paper, from Jacob Lawrence, a painter, story-teller. It made me think of the" images d'Epinal", the colors were darker with stylized shapes. Each painting is depicting a chapter of Haiti's history. In parallel, it tells the story of Toussaint L'Ouverture's life. He was the leader of the slaves revolt and eventually became a General. He was imprisoned by the French and died one year later of a "broken heart". A medley of cubism, naive art creates flat paintings using the color to create some perspective. The painter himself stated that the colors came from his childhood, Harlem where he was born and raised. He was 21 years old when he painted this series.

The revolt of the Amistadt is also depicted by Lawrence Jacob. My preferred version is from Romare Barden made from a mixture of collage and painting : a map of Africa, a boat and the face of an African slave with red, black and other bright colors.

Of course , two sons from New Orleans should be mentioned, Jeffrey Cook who went back to his African roots to create the sculpture called "Dogon Box" 1996 inspired by the sculptures from Mali, and John Scott (1940-2007) with "Closest to Blues and Jazz". He made this statement:"what I have been trying to do...in my art is make a piece that would be similar to what African-American musicians have done with gospels, and blues and jazz, so that when you hear it , it wraps around your soul."

photograph NOMA from the author

General Toussaint L'Ouverture: danforthmuseum.org