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New York Times
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Henry Taylor's Mentor Was the Art World's Bruce Lee
Spend time with the Los Angeles painter Henry Taylor and you'll hear a name repeated with such single-minded conviction, it can feel as if he's trying to rouse a spirit. Jarvaise. The painting teacher who took an interest in his work in the 1980s, when Taylor was a hapless student trying to figure out what to do with his life. Jarvaise. Who prodded Taylor to quit hanging around community college and enroll at the California Institute of the Arts. Jarvaise. The paternal figure Taylor might call at 2 in the morning when he was feeling sentimental. Taylor is now renowned for the imaginative ways he has captured Black life on canvas. In 2022, he was the subject of a critically acclaimed survey that opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and then traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art. Yet even at these altitudes, he has never stopped the mononymic conjuring of Jarvaise. 'There are a lot of people that teach karate, but they're not Bruce Lee,' Taylor says. 'Jarvaise was Bruce Lee.' Jarvaise is James Jarvaise, the Southern California painter (he died in 2015) who taught not just Taylor, but generations of area artists — including the painter and critic Peter Plagens, the painter Charles Arnoldi and the sculptor Robert Therrien. In 1959, Jarvaise was also one of three Californians to be featured in 'Sixteen Americans,' an influential survey organized by Dorothy Miller, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, where he presented a series of abstracted landscapes that distilled mountains and sky into elegant experiments in color and line. But unlike artists in the show who went on to prominence, including Robert Rauschenberg and Ellsworth Kelly, Jarvaise didn't achieve similar renown, choosing to remain in California at a time when the art world orbited around New York. Taylor's continuous invocation of Jarvaise has now summoned his mentor into view. On Sunday, Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles will open 'James Jarvaise & Henry Taylor: Sometimes a straight line has to be crooked,' which gathers almost seven dozen works produced over several decades by both painters. (The show runs through Oct. 5.) Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘We thought we were being naughty!' The thrilling show by Black and Asian women that rocked the art world
It is November 1985 and in a corridor of London's ICA, a pivotal moment in British art history is about to take place. Curated by Lubaina Himid, The Thin Black Line displays work by 11 Black and Asian women artists, hung on the walls of the museum's narrow walkway – to signify just how they've been marginalised. Their work – which explores social, cultural, political, feminist and aesthetic issues – comes as a shock to the stuffy art establishment. Critics dismiss it, or deride the works as 'angry'. And yet this show, placing Black women artists firmly at the centre of contemporary British art history, will come to be seen as a turning point, paving the way for future winners of the Turner prize (Himid) and Venice Golden Lion (Sonia Boyce). Forty years on, the ICA is revisiting the show with Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985–2025, building on its legacy with new and old works from the original artists, and new contributors. Here, some of them reflect on the original exhibition, the reaction it received, and how the art world has changed. Sutapa Biswas: The 1980s were a charged time politically, socially and economically. I arrived at art college in 1981 with a great degree of understanding about the histories of the empire and how it impacted my parents. They were born in what was called British India. They experienced partition and genocide and were displaced. It was a complex time in the UK, too. In my community in west London, the Southall Youth Movement, an antiracist group, had burned down the Hambrough Tavern where skinhead bands played. Marlene Smith: I was a student, studying for my BA at Bradford School of Art. By the time I joined the BLK Art Group, an association of young Black artists, I was already thinking about my identity in relation to feminism. I was not the only Black person studying, but I was one of few. I was certainly the only person trying to make work with political overtones. Jennifer Comrie: I was living through a really interesting time: the Troubles, the miners' strike, Thatcherism, apartheid in South Africa. My work reflected this. Art for me has always been a wayto garner a better understanding of myself and the world around me. Ingrid Pollard: I was doing various jobs, and signing on for benefits. I was a cleaner. I was a gardener for the council. There weren't any rosy aspirations to be an artist. I had been doing screen-printing in an evening class and then a job came up in this feminist print shop in London, which I got, much to my surprise. There was a dark room there, so I started doing photography. Sutapa: One day on my university course, I was confronted by a painting by Turner titled The Slave Ship. My tutor was talking about the expressionistic nature of the brushmarks. I was sitting there thinking: 'What about what's in the water?' That moment, coupled with what I heard in another lecture, made me think: 'We're talking about class and gender – but we're not talking about race.' Marlene: My painting tutor didn't like what I was doing. He was not at all convinced that art could, or should, be political. So when Lubaina showed up and stood in front of my work and had a conversation with me, it was totally transformative. Jennifer: When Lubaina came in to my studio by chance and looked at my work, she was intrigued and asked if I would be interested in showing it. Initially I was unsure. I did not realise how pivotal this chance meeting would be. Sutapa: I found out Lubaina was doing a talk and went along. I introduced myself and said: 'I'm a student at the University of Leeds. I'd love to interview you.' When I submitted my dissertation, I invited Lubaina to do a talk at the university. There, she saw my painting Housewives with Steak-Knives and the video work Kali. 'I'm organising this exhibition,' she said. 'I would love to include your work.' Marlene: The show was coming up, but I had no idea what to make. Then Cherry Groce was shot [during a police raid on her Brixton home]. So I made Good Housekeeping – a larger than life painting of a woman leaning against a doorway. Behind her outstretched arm is a framed photograph of my sister's birthday party. Above that image, painted on the wall, are the words: 'My mother opens the door at 7am. She is not bulletproof.' I was thinking about Cherry Groce as a middle-aged single mum. Sutapa: The rhetoric was so racist in Britain. So I began to think about performance as strategic intervention. That's what emerged in Kali. But it also has a presence in Housewives with Steak-Knives. It's not a static piece, settled against the wall. It sits forward and looks as if it's going to fall on top of you. Jennifer: Coming to Terms Through Conflict, a work I put in the show, questions identity: northern, Jamaican, British, Black, Christian, etc. Untitled continued this journey. Its broken stitching is intentional, representing a refusal to be contained or defined by social constraints – church, family, anyone. It's a visual declaration of freedom. Marlene: Jenny had this beautiful singing voice. I remember her singing as we were installing. Even when I think of it now, it chokes me up. I remember Sutapa climbing up and writing the words for my work in black paint. Ingrid: It was fun installing it all. We thought we were being slightly naughty, because it was a well-known gallery. It was only later that I understood the ramifications, the politics of what Lubaina was trying to organise. Helen Cammock [participant in new show]: I was 15 when that exhibition was at the ICA. I wasn't interested in art then. It wasn't on my radar until 2005, when I did a photography BA. I had bought some books that contained Ingrid's work. Postcards Home [her photography book about England and the Caribbean] was on my desk while I wrote my dissertation. The images moved me. I was sad. I was angry. I found beauty. Marlene: The response to The Thin Black Line, in terms of art criticism, was pretty appalling. The critics came to it very defensively, rather than looking at what the work had to say. Sutapa and I wrote a piece for Spare Rib magazine, talking about the lack of useful critique around Black artists. Sutapa: The reviews were reduced to questions of identity and that became a platform for white guilt. But the real issue was avoiding the language of our practice, in the way that you might talk about the language of David Hockney's work or Helen Chadwick's. We weren't being afforded the same level criteria. They weren't dealing with the aesthetics of our practice. Helen: It's not a new thing. It happens now. This notion that you're angry. That you're didactic. It's a marginal experience and people aren't interested in it. The whole framing of the show undermined the quality of its ideas, of its potential to shake people's ways of thinking and seeing. Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Marlene: You would expect a show like The Thin Black Line to create opportunities, but the opposite happened. If you examine the YBAs, there was a synergy with what had happened earlier with the Black Arts Movement; it's striking that they seemed to be using our methods of DIY. However, they were not including the Black artists in their projects. Ingrid: There was never a time, after, when I wasn't making art. I wasn't ill. I didn't have children. I was teaching as a way of keeping a regular income. I didn't have to deal with the aspirations of a gallery representing me. Those things were very alien. Marlene: In 2011, Tate did a show looking back at The Thin Black Line. And then Graves Gallery stumbled across work by the BLK Art Group and did a show. So that felt like something was happening. Over the last 10 years, it feels like there's been a resurgence of interest in the Black Arts Movement because, despite its significance, it has not made it into discussions of art history. Amber Akaunu [in the new show]: I studied art and art history at Liverpool Hope University from 2015 to 2018. I didn't really learn about Black art history. I feel a bit of pain when I find out about things I didn't know. I started a magazine with another artist in the course called Rooted. We just felt there was a big gap in knowledge. Sutapa: After the show, I continued to work. I showed with Vito Acconci, Tania Bruguera, Doris Salcedo and Louise Bourgeois at Iniva in London. In 2004 I had a show there that was not nominated for the Turner. Where is my retrospective at the Tate? Where is Claudette Johnson's? I have not received accolades for my recent exhibitions at the Baltic and Kettle's Yard. Ingrid: Getting recognition came after a long period of work, 20 to 30 years. I was surprised to be nominated for the Turner. It raises your public profile. The media had ignored me and a lot of artists for 40 years. Marlene: I had a solo show called Ah, Sugar in2024. At the opening, Lubaina introduced me to the curators from the ICA and said that this new exhibition, Connecting Thin Black Lines, would be coming up. It was a surprise, exciting. Helen: I was looking at the complete lineup. Their voices weren't heard before – and now they are being heard more loudly than ever. Amber: Lubaina hosted a lunch for some of the artists who were going to be in this new show. I just sat there and soaked everything in. It was shocking – but touching – to hear their stories. A lot of these artists have gained so much success, but you can still hear the hurt. I related so much. Some 30 to 40 years on, I'm having similar experiences. I remember curating an exhibition over four days, and showing some work for Black History Month, and we weren't paid for it. Ingrid: A lot of the young students I speak to are still complaining: lack of recognition, opportunities. Things change, but they remain the same. My advice is you need a gang. You can't do it on your own. It takes a village to make an artist. Helen: It happened to be a really monumental experience for me being in a show called Carte de Visite with Claudette Johnson and Ingrid Pollard in 2015. I think it encapsulated what's happening now, the interconnectedness across generations. Marlene: It was a real privilege for me to exhibit with them in the first place. And it's a real privilege to be reunited. It's always nerve-wracking when you make new work. There's a bit of an echo between the piece I've made this time and the 1985 piece. This piece is probably more gentle. Amber: The film I'm showing is about motherhood and friendship. It's a documentary style that that explores my childhood being raised by a single mum in Toxteth, Liverpool. Jennifer: It's incredible to see the works being recognised again after 40 years. It genuinely feels like a few moments ago we were setting up the works in the ICA's corridor. Ingrid: I'm hoping the exhibition annoys a lot of people in the art world. When they had an opportunity to engage with these artists, they didn't take it. So it's like: 'See what you missed out on, mate.' Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985-2025 is at the ICA, London, until 7 September
New York Times
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Punk, Monet and Puerto Rico: New Photography From Elle Pérez
Subtle resistance to representation is on display in a handful of new shows, where some artists are refusing the notion that figuration must be their primary subject, or what is required to be successful. 'Source Notes,' Lorna Simpson's riveting new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, highlights her shift toward painting while still emphasizing the artists' career-long interest in destabilizing expectations of Black life and the art that makes sense of it. The painter Jordan Casteel's newfound focus on florals is a dreamy drift away from her signature portraits. And one of the most fascinating new artists I found to be coyly refusing to play the game of identity politics is the New York photographer Elle Pérez, whose exhibition at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Upper Manhattan centers the politics of personhood over the consumption of that same self. The lens lingers on physical terrain: yards, curving coastlines. The portraits included are mantle-size, which, in the cavernous space, dares you to come close and forge an intimate relationship with the work. At first glance, one could erroneously wonder if the show, comprising nearly 30 images, a slide show, a short film and a collage, is a premature retrospective. The works on display span the artist's career from 2009 to 2025 and seem to be organized semi-chronologically. But it quickly becomes clear that 'The World Is Always Again Beginning, History With the Present,' organized by Jenny Jaskey, chief curator, in collaboration with Pérez, functions as a cut section invitation into the sacred practice of process. This is a show that starts before you get to the show. The Academy is nestled in the vibrant and rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Washington Heights, near Boricua College. The elaborate iron gates of the 1923 building that welcome visitors invoke the Gilded Age and its arts patronage, a sorely needed reminder of possibility amid devastating arts defunding. As Pérez explains inside: 'This is the neighborhood that made me.' Pérez was born in 1989 in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents who were also born and raised there. (As Pérez said in a recent interview, 'My grandparents were the generation that made the jump.') Instead of traditional blocks of wall text, the artist chose to install fragments of their poetry, like those lines, which start the exhibition. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Printmaking At Cleveland's Karamu House Highlighted In Exhibition
'Swingtime,' c. 1938 . Charles Sallée (American, 1911 – 2006). Etching and aquatint; image: 14 x 17.4 cm; sheet: 25.2 x 33.2 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Created by the Federal Art Project, Works Progress Administration, and lent by the Fine Arts Collection of the US General Services Administration, 4215.1942. The popular history of Black art in America in the early and mid-20th century has been reduced to production emanating from a handful of epicenters–Harlem, Chicago, D.C., etc.–along with mostly self-taught 'folk' artists out in the countryside, places like Gee's Bend, AL. In the same way important soul music was produced beyond Detroit, Memphis, and Philly, in places like Cincinnati, hotspots for African American visual arts existed in places like Louisville and Nashville and Cleveland. Those locations previously omitted from the story are finally being returned to it. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, 'Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community,' highlights the role of printmaking at Cleveland's Karamu House, one of the best-known sites for Black American culture since opening in 1915. Initially founded as a settlement house by Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, 'an integrated community center dedicated to fostering human relations through the arts and humanities,' Karamu House soon became known for using the arts as a means of encouraging racial integration. The Jelliffe's, a white couple, were gender and racial equity activists and philanthropists, along with supporters of the arts and education in Cleveland throughout the 20th century. Although mostly noted today for its premier theater program, Karamu House birthed a printmaking workshop beginning in the 1930s where artists and community members alike—including a young Langston Hughes—could experiment with various techniques, playing on printmaking's fundamental accessibility and democracy. This exploration led to the formation of Karamu Artists Inc. in 1940, a group counting some of the most recognized Black printmakers of the Works Progress Administration era as members: Elmer W. Brown (1909–1971), Hughie Lee-Smith (1915–1999), Charles Sallée (1913–1906), and William E. Smith (1913–1997). 'What was going on here in Cleveland during the 30s and 40s was just as important and substantive and prolific as what was going on in places like Philadelphia and New York, it just hasn't gotten the same attention,' Britany Salsbury, curator of prints and drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art and exhibition co-curator, told 'It felt important to draw attention to it and reintegrate (Karamu House) into what we know about Black artists working during the WPA years and in the years after the Harlem Renaissance.' The Works Progress Administration was a New Deal program launched by the federal government during the Great Depression. Its aims were pouring millions of federal dollars into building projects supporting the public good like libraries, schools, hospitals, roads, and post offices. Hundreds of thousands were employed in the process, keeping millions of Americans off the streets and out of poverty. The program also supported tens of thousands of artists–painters, printmakers, dancers, musicians, actors–through the Federal Art Project. Among them were photographer Dorothea Lange, sculptor Louise Nevelson, and painters like Jacob Lawrence, Willem de Kooning, Stuart Davis, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and Marsden Hartley. Imagine that, the federal government valuing and helping artists and the arts instead of working to destroy them. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural explosion of African American creativity across all disciplines during the 1920s. Key figures included Zora Neale Hurston, Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglass, James Van Der Zee, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald. 'This is one of those instances in which there's a dearth of scholarly attention paid to the mechanisms of artistic manufacture and production that were going on here because it's Cleveland, precisely because it's not New York, Chicago, or LA,' Erin Benay, associate professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and exhibition cocurator, told 'That was one of the things we wanted to rectify on both a scholarly level, but also on a much larger level for viewers and residents and people who share in this history and these centers.' Karamu artists come up as an aside within scholarship on the WPA's arts programs and the aftereffects of the Harlem Renaissance, but haven't fully been integrated within the understanding of those topics scholarly or popularly. Cleveland artists had direct connections to the Harlem Renaissance and wider American art world through personal networks, travel, and education. They aligned themselves with the philosophical architect of the Harlem Renaissance, Alain Locke. Their work was promoted by pioneering African American art historian James A. Porter. Truth was, the Harlem Renaissance took place outside of Harlem. As Denise Murrell's exceptional Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition 'The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism' detailed, what's come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance was a flourishing of African American creativity and cultural production spanning the U.S. and the Atlantic Ocean. 'It's a common misconception that the Harlem Renaissance was about Harlem,' Benay said. 'We wanted to make sure that we weren't just treating these artists biographically, both in terms of the biography of Cleveland and the biography of the specific artists, but rather that we were situating them within the proper art historical dues they're owed, which is to think about them in this broader Harlem Renaissance trajectory from a stylistic perspective. Then also to integrate careful and precise research that shows the way that these artists were specifically connected to the WPA. There's a vagueness around the artists and the relationship of Karamu House to the WPA that we really wanted to nail down with archival research.' To that end, the exhibition is accompanied by a deeply researched catalog including a catalogue raisonné, an exhaustive, detailed compilation of all known prints produced by the group during the 1930s and 40s. Some had been previously unpublished. Extensive catalogue footnotes provide a roadmap for future art historians and scholars to find sources enabling them to think about these artists as individuals. The project is a launching pad for further scholarship and recognition. 'My Son! My Son!,' 1941. William E. Smith (American, 1913–1997). Linocut; image: 19.7 x 13.7 cm; sheet: 28.5 x 22.7 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Print Club of Cleveland, 1941.122. Prints and printmaking have always been the artwork of the people. For the people. Democratic. Collaborative. Graphic. Relatable to and understandable by general audiences. Prints are more affordable to make and collect. Easier to transport and distribute. They're lightweight, non-precious, and produced in multiples. Printmaking has served as a means of taking a message to the masses since its invention and Martin Luther through the Mexican revolution and today. It's always been a tool of protest. Woody Guthrie put a sticker on his guitar reading, 'this machine kills fascists;' the same can be said of the printing press. The medium has always been a tool for underrepresented people. It was perfect for the artists working at Karamu House during the Great Depression and Jim Crow segregation in America. 'Printmaking is a collaborative medium,' Benay explained. 'It's hard to successfully make prints alone. Someone has to have clean hands to handle the papers. Someone usually helps with the inking. There's a lot of trial and error. This idea of collaboration and community was integral to Karamu House and transcended any particular aspect of the arts programming.' Cleveland also had a strong history of commercial lithography and was one of five cities in the United States designated as a site for a graphics workshop as part of the Works Progress Administration. Karamu House, however, was not a WPA community art center like the South Side Community Art Center in Chicago or the Harlem Community Art Center. The WPA graphics workshop did provide Karamu artists with access to a wide range of materials, tools, and expertise. Subscription services for the purchase of prints unrelated to Karamu House were also flourishing in Cleveland during the 40s–nationally as well–all adding to the uniquely fertile ground under which the Karamu House Inc. printmaking project began. 'One of the ways this (exhibition) speaks to a larger art historical story than just a Cleveland story is in the way that it focuses on printmaking, and on prints in particular, which is also a marginalized medium in art histories and doesn't get the attention it deserves,' Benay said. 'The story of printmaking ties directly to the story of Black artists and to the success of Black artists nationally, and the ways that then fueled trajectories for art making in the 1960s and 70s, not just for Black artists, but for all artists of color, particularly in the United States.' Black artists like Charles White and Elizabeth Catlett. Chicano artists. All prominently used printmaking in the mid and later 20th century to great prominence and effect. Karamu House Inc.'s greatest recognition within the broader American art world occurred in 1942 with an exhibition at Associated American Artists Gallery in New York, one of the major venues for seeing prints at the time on Fifth Avenue. 'Many of the Karamu artists were among the first Black artists collected by museums and white collectors, who helped to cultivate and create a Black art market, both in Cleveland, but also nationally,' Benay said. Shortly after the 1942 exhibition and the end of World War II, Karamu House Inc. disbanded as a group. WPA funding ceased. Many of the artist's careers were ascending and they explored individual opportunities elsewhere. Artmaking at Karamu House kept on rolling however. 'Printmaking did not cease at Karamu House, in fact, the art program continued to foster and develop artists throughout the 60s and 70s, even when they didn't always make their art on site,' Benay explained. 'As art institutions like the Cleveland Institute of Art accepted more and more black students, sure, artists would seek professional development from an art school that had more robust offerings, but Karamu House continued to anchor the arts community by fostering exhibitions, by having print sales, and that was a huge part of the way that it cultivated professional development for Black artists in Cleveland and continues to do so to this day.' Galleries at Karamu House remain fundamental sites of exhibition for Black artists in Cleveland. That began in the 50s. An evolution. As much as Benay and Salsbury want to situate Karamu House within broader national artistic currents surrounding the WPA and Harlem Renaissance, they are also taking care to point out what made it special. Its post-War evolution distinguished it from any arts center before or since. 'One of the primary ways Karamu House was distinct was that it became a stopping place for Black professionals traveling across the country in a very Green Book style trajectory,' Benay said. 'The Negro Motorist's Green Book' was a travel guide published from 1937 through 1964 aimed at safely guiding African Americans to friendly lodging and dining establishments during Jim Crow segregation. 'It was not officially published as a Green Book destination, but it operated as one essentially, and because of its theater, because of its performing arts tradition, it had this gathering place quality, which is uncanny, because Karamu in Swahili means 'a place of joyful gathering,'' Benay continued. 'That only continued to be a part of its identity as it transitioned out of the 40s and into the Civil Rights era which is when Muhammad Ali and Amiri Baraka and MLK and Malcolm X and everyone is stopping at Karamu House. They came to Cleveland, but they specifically came to Karamu House, and its identity as an art center changed profoundly over the years to be a place that cultivated civil rights activism and social justice initiatives while carefully threading this needle not to be too provocative, so that it could still be interracial, that it could still welcome diverse audiences.' Karamu House was unique from inception. About more than art from inception. 'It had things like a daycare, it truly was this third space for members of the Black community in Cleveland, but also as this racially integrated space at a time in Cleveland's history, in America's history, when there wasn't a lot of interest in racial integration,' Salsbury said. 'Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community' is free to visit and can be seen through August 17, 2025.
New York Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Sinners' and Beyoncé Battle the Vampires. And the Gatekeepers, Too.
When Beyoncé wails, in the opening moments of her 'Cowboy Carter' album, that 'them big ideas are buried here,' I've imagined 'big' standing in for 'racist' but have never hit pause to wonder about the GPS coordinates. That song's called 'Ameriican Requiem,' so the cemetery is everywhere. And yet partway through Ryan Coogler's hit 'Sinners,' I thought, Oh, this is where 'here' is, inside a movie about a 1932 juke joint whose music is so soulful that vampires, who are also a white minstrel trio, want to suck its blood. She's envisioning utopia — a place where a Black woman feels free to make any kind of music she wants, including country. He's imagined a nightmare in which Black art is doomed to be coveted before it's ever just simply enjoyed. She's defying the gatekeepers. He's arguing that some gates definitely need to be kept. To that end, the movie keeps a gag running wherein vampire etiquette requires a verbal invitation to enter the club, leading to comic scenes of clearly possessed, increasingly itchy soul junkies standing in a doorway begging to be let in. People have been calling certain white performers interested in Black music vampires for years. Here's a movie that literalizes the metaphor with an audacity that's thrilling in its obviousness and redundancy. There's never a bad time for good pop art. There's never a bad time for Black artists to provide it. But these here times? Times of hatchet work and so-called wood-chipping; of chain saws, as both metaphor and dispiriting political prop; a time of vandalistic racial gaslighting. These times might call for an excessive pop art that takes on too much, that wants to be gobbled up and dug into, an art that isn't afraid to boast I am this country, while also doing some thinking about what this country is. These here times might call for Black artists to provide that, too, to offer an American education that feels increasingly verboten. That's not art's strong suit, pointing at chalkboards. But if school systems are being bullied into coddling snowflakes, then perhaps, on occasion, art should be hitting you upside the head and dancing on your nose.
