Witness : art and civil rights in the sixties

Witness Art and civil rights in the sixties

Book - 2014

"Over 100 works by African American artists and others from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement show powerful responses in art to events of black history. Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Witness accompanies an exhibition organized by the Brooklyn Museum and demonstrates the array of aesthetic strategies through which 1960s artists engaged in the struggle for racial justice. Personal recollections from artists including Mark di Suvero and Jack Whitten intertwine with rich illustration, engaging essays, and documentary photos--including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and freedom marchers on the Selma-to-Montgomery March, and Gordon Parks's photos of the Black Panther Party and Muhammad Ali--along with a co...mprehensive chronology of the period from 1954 to the 1970s. African American artists featured include Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, David Hammons, and Melvin Edwards. Represented as well are notable artists who recorded aspects of the Civil Rights struggle, including Richard Avedon, Bruce Davidson, Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, and Philip Guston. This collection of emotionally resonant artworks lets us see the Civil Rights movement with new eyes and is a fitting tribute to a turbulent period in history, whose struggles continue to shape America."--Publisher information.

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Subjects
Brooklyn Museum > Exhibitions.
Civil rights movements in art > Exhibitions.
Civil rights movements > History > Exhibitions.
Art, American > 20th century > Themes, motives > Exhibitions.
African American art > 20th century > Exhibitions.
African Americans > Civil rights > History > Exhibitions.
Art > Political aspects > History > 20th century > Exhibitions.
Nineteen sixties > Exhibitions.
Social movements in art > Exhibitions.
United States > Race relations > Pictorial works.
Published
Brooklyn, New York : New York, New York : Brooklyn Museum [2014]
[Place of publication not identified] : [2014]
Language
English
Other Authors
Teresa A. Carbone (curator), Kellie Jones, 1959- (writer of added commentary), Connie H. Choi, Dalila Scruggs, Cynthia Ann Young, 1969-
Item Description
Published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Brooklyn Museum. Exhibition held at the Brooklyn Museum, March 7-July 6, 2014; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., August 30-December 21, 2014; the Blanton Museum of Art, the University of Texas at Austin, February 8-May 10, 2015.
Physical Description
176 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 29 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-170) and index.
ISBN
9781580933902
  • Civil, rights, act / Kellie Jones
  • Documentary activism: photography and the Civil Rights Movement / Connie H. Choi
  • Exhibit A: Evidence and the art object / Teresa A. Carbone
  • Civil rights and the rise of a new cultural imagination / Cynthia A. Young
  • Chronology / Dalila Scruggs.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Accompanying a highly anticipated exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, this thoughtful catalog of brilliantly wide-ranging aesthetics explores the complex relations between visual art and the fight for racial justice. Taking as its occasion the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the text moves away from rote historical narratives, instead opting to focus on the role of the photographer in shaping action and emergent discourses, of the influence of Ghana and Cuba on politics and aesthetics, and of the tensions of politics in Pop art. These thoughtful essays help guide what might otherwise be an overwhelming diversity of images, including a David Hammons body print, an iconic poster by Emory Douglas, Betye Saar assemblages, and Norman Rockwell paintings, among many others. The images themselves, brought into conversation with one another, are a valuable and resonant resource, allowing not only a deeper understanding of art from the 1960s, but of the ongoing historical reality of race in the United States. As Cynthia A. Young points out in one essay, the Civil Rights Movement was not monolithic: "In fact, it encompassed a series of movements. with sometimes similar and often vastly different strategies, goals, and outcomes". In guiding us to better understand this reality, this book is exciting and successful. Color illustrations. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Review by Library Journal Review

This companion volume to the Brooklyn Museum's exhibition of the same name (March-July 2014) takes as its horizon observance of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Cocurators Carbone (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum) and Jones (art history, archaeology, Columbia Univ.) present four convincing essays that address aspects ranging from representational strategies of artists, the use of photography beyond simple reportage, the impact of this work on the art history canon, and the globally situated struggle for emancipation. Jones's deeply complex analysis cites numerous lushly illustrated works; her material, social, and political examination discusses the myriad ways African American artists, often segregated from the art world, articulated racial portraits of blackness as a means of accessing political authority. A variety of media are considered, including gestural and geometric abstraction, assemblage, minimalism, and pop imagery. An investigation of a diversity of artists, including African Americans and some of their white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and Caribbean contemporaries reveal the impact their work had on contemporary art production and criticism. Full-color illustrations of over 100 artworks are accompanied by a 30-page time line of events. VERDICT This richly illustrated catalog will appeal to art and cultural historians, students, and those with an interest in the representative and political power of art created during the civil rights era.-Toro Castano, Roski Sch. of Fine Arts, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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