#blackresistance

Nat Turner (1800–1831), a revolutionary freedom fighter, a symbol of resistance, and a spiritual leader who dared to challenge the violent system of white supremacy and slavery.

Born into slavery in Virginia, Turner was a deeply spiritual man who believed he was divinely called to lead his people to liberation. In a time when enslaved Black people were denied basic humanity, Turner saw no other path to freedom but rebellion. His 1831 uprising was not senseless violence—it was a calculated act of resistance against generations of rape, torture, forced labour, and dehumanization.

Turner’s rebellion struck terror into the heart of a society built on Black oppression, forcing America to reckon with the reality that enslaved people would not be silent forever. He represents the fire that refused to be extinguished, the spirit of Black liberation that would echo through the Haitian Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter era.

Congratulations to Betye Saar whose solo exhibition opens at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston today!

Saar is a celebrated contemporary American artist (b. 1926) and leading figure of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s. Through visual storytelling, Saar’s assemblage work often confronts American racism, colonialism, and stereotypes of Black people in this country.

Saar’s exhibition entitled Betye Saar: Heart of a Wanderer “explores Saar’s trips to Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, highlighting works influenced by her many trips and her engagement with global histories of travel. Through these profound works, the artist reflects on themes of race, colonialism, forced migration, and spiritual systems that blend religious traditions from around the world.”

This year’s theme for Black History Month is Black Resistance. This month, we will focus on Black artists whose work challenges the status quo of being Black in this nation, and addresses issues ranging from civil rights, racial inequality, poverty, racism, and the everyday lives of African Americans.

Bill Traylor (1853 – 1949) started drawing and painting on discarded cardboard at the age of 85. He became a celebrated artist posthumously for the nearly 1,500 works he created on the city sidewalks during his years of living in the segregated part of Montgomery, Alabama.

Traylor was born enslaved on an Alabama plantation and lived much of his life as a sharecropper after Emancipation. He created works with unique vision to tell stories and memories of the hard life he experienced. At first glance, his images seem deceptively simple, but they reveal layers of complexity, reflecting his lived experience and the fraught history of slavery and Jim Crow South. In 1949, Traylor died impoverished in a segregated hospital.

“When Traylor started drawing, it was a radical act. He was among the first generation of blacks to become American citizens, but literacy and personal agency for African Americans were still touchy issues in Alabama--and personal expression poking at a racially fraught past was unequivocally dangerous. Social systems in the Jim Crow South--designed to impoverish and disenfranchise the formerly enslaved--were forceful and pervasive, and Traylor's existence was grounded in knowing the difference between white and black worlds and keeping his thoughts and personal views hidden. But for Traylor, charting his life and memories in pictures was an indelible and validating testament of selfhood, and in their very creation are subversive works.” (from Smithsonian Art Museum website)

Image 1: Front cover

Image 2: “Exciting Event: House with Figures,” 1939 – 1943, Poster pain and graphite on cardboard, 13 1/2”x 13 7/8”

Image 3: Left page: Left: “Four Men, Bottles on a Shelf,” 1939 – 1942, Crayon and graphite on cardboard, 13 1/2' x 7 1/2'. Right: “Man on Triangle Reaching for Bottle,” 1939 – 1942, Graphite and charcoal on cardboard, 12”x 8”, Right page: “Man Reaching for Bottles,” c. 1939 – 1942, Graphite on cardboard, 17”x 14”

Jack Whitten (1939 – 2018)

“I believe in the history of painting. Let’s go back to Franz Kline. Franz Kline helped me. He said to me and a group of younger artists one night, ‘The minute you walk into that studio, and you pick up that brush, you’re a part of history, and you will never be alone.” By God, did that help me, being black and so forth, being left out of shit and so forth, and Franz Kline saying, you’ll never be alone. You pick up that brush and you walk in that studio. Man, that’s meaningful. For a young artist to hear that coming from a master, I still stand by that, he’s right.” – Jack Whitten from an interview by Robert Storr, page. 60)

Image 1: Jack Whitten in his 40 Crosby Street studio, c 1976-78 on the back cover; photographer unknown.

Image 2: Front cover: “Self-Portrait I” (detail), 2014

#BlackResistance

Some of the powerhouse contemporary artists’ books from the stacks!

Dawoud Bey on photographing people and communities / photographs and text by Dawoud Bey ; introduction by Brian Ulrich. 2019. HOLLIS number: 99153846094103941

Lorna Simpson / Thelma Golden, Kellie Jones, Chrissie Iles, Naomi Beckwith. 2022

HOLLIS number: 99156213824303941

Kara Walker : Dust jackets for the niggerati. 2013. HOLLIS number: 990138041340203941

I'm / Deborah Roberts. 2021. HOLLIS number: 99156414672603941

Glenn Ligon : unbecoming / Judith Tannenbaum ; with essays by Richard Meyer and Thelma Golden ; and an interview with Glenn Ligon by Byron Kim. c1997

HOLLIS number: 990076940110203941

Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems : in dialogue / Ron Platt and Kinshasha Holman Conwill. 2022. HOLLIS number: 99156378937603941

Double consciousness : Black conceptual art since 1970 : Terry Adkins, EdgarArceneaux, Sanford Biggers ... / essay by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Franklin Sirmans. 2005. HOLLIS number

990095704830203941

Radical presence : black performance in contemporary art / Valerie Cassel Oliver ; essays by Yona Backer, Naomi Beckwith, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Tavia Nyong'o, Clifford Owens, Franklin Sirmans. 2013. HOLLIS number: 990137858880203941

Sanford Biggers / organized for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis by Lisa Melandri.

2019. HOLLIS number: 99153814871703941

Theaster Gates : black archive / Kunsthaus Bregenz ; Herausgeber, Thomas D. Trummer.

2017. HOLLIS number: 990149445900203941

#BlackResistance

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) summarizes this year’s theme “Black Resistance” as follows: "African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms... These efforts have been to advocate for a dignified self-determined life in a just democratic society in the United States and beyond the United States political jurisdiction… This is a call to everyone, inside and outside the academy, to study the history of Black Americans’ responses to establish safe spaces, where Black life can be sustained, fortified, and respected. "

By resisting, Black people have achieved triumphs, successes, and progress. Black artists, along with other creatives, employ various media to tell stories and create change.

Here is another stack of books that celebrate Black artists whose work resists the status quo, challenges the system, and calls for awareness of the myriad of issues affecting Black people’s lives.

Barkley L. Hendricks : works on paper. HOLLIS: 99155235696303941

Barkley L. Hendricks : basketball. HOLLIS: 99155776869903941

Howardena Pindell : paintings, 1974-1980. HOLLIS: 990145322360203941

Kerry James Marshall : history of painting. HOLLIS: 99153829093703941

Emma Amos : color odyssey. HOLLIS: 99155279216703941

Jack Whitten : five decades of painting HOLLIS: 990145227350203941

Black artists in America : from the Great Depression to civil rights. HOLLIS: 99155993050103941

Roy DeCarava, a retrospective. HOLLIS: 990067852100203941

Gordon Parks : the Flávio story HOLLIS: 99153691397803941