Exhibition Review: Grief And Grievance: Art And Mourning In America at New Museum
Glenn Ligon, A Small Band, 2015 © Glenn Ligon
Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America was conceived of as a powerful socio-political statement and a deliberate act of remembrance. It is a testament to the vision of its late curator that the exhibition continues to speak deeply to the tragedy that has unfolded since Okwui Enwezor began assembling the wide-ranging collection in 2018. Enwezor is himself remembered in the exhibition by Julie Mehretu’s abstract painting, “Black Monolith, for Okwui Enwezor”—he died in 2019 at the age of 55, but not before laying the groundwork for the show that was built upon by four friends and colleagues to bring it to fruition. Enwezor fellow curators Massimiliano Gioni, Glenn Ligon, Mark Nash, and Naomi Beckwith picked up where he left off, working from notes and consultations with him before his untimely death from cancer.
Theaster Gates, Gone are the Days of Shelter and Martyr, 2014 © Theaster Gates
The murder of George Floyd and the slow-motion tragedy of the hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 deaths, disproportionately affecting communities of color, are subjects after-the-fact of Enwezor’s original conception. The show, though—whose pieces are each so highly focused but whose narrative thrust feels, at the same time, so universal—is singularly equipped in its content and its sensibility to address these particular injustices in the fullness that they merit.
Dawoud Bey, Birmingham Series, Fred Stewart II and Tyler Collins © Dawoud Bey
Comprising pieces by 37 artists, from a stretch of more than half a century, Grief and Grievance unflinchingly confronts the brutal backlash of white supremacy through the same period—the “grievance” referred to in the title—and its appalling impact on Black and brown communities. A portrait series by the contemporary photographer Dawoud Bey titled “The Birmingham Project”—a moving examination of the history and memory of the 1963 KKK terrorist attack on Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church—finds itself in a deep conversation with Jack Whitten’s 1964 newsprint and aluminum foil collage “Birmingham,” which grapples with the same heartbreaking subject matter. Bey’s striking, mournful piece portrays a young boy and an older man seated, mirroring one another, in a split shot against the same background. One is the age of a victim at the time of the bombing, the other the age that they would be today, had they lived. Both stare at the viewer, demanding that they imagine what could have been.
Arthur Jafa, Love is the Message, The Message is Death © Arthur Jafa
This moving exhibition spans, or perhaps transcends, media, from ready-mades and photo-portraiture to interactive electronic sculpture and large-scale installations. One particularly striking, unsettling piece, by Nari Ward, features a hearse, tarred and feathered with peacock plumes, trapped inside a steel cage, with exhaust pipes and mufflers beneath it and suspended above from the ceiling. Literally from the moment you walk in the door you are greeted by the first of many immersive pieces—a security chime like those often found on the doors of convenience stores—a conceptual piece by artist Cameron Rowland titled “Presumption of Guilt”—meets each museum guest at the entrance. The exhibition even extends into the street—the exterior of the building is emblazoned with illuminated letters reading “blues blood bruise,” words excerpted from the testimony of a teenager brutally beaten by NYPD officers in 1964.
Deana Lawson, Jouvert © Deana Lawson
Matching the momentum of rising stars like multimedia artist Adam Pendleton, whose silkscreen pieces address the murder of George Floyd, with the gravitas of canonical figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grief and Grievance is a weighty call to reckoning with our shameful national legacy of racial violence and a resolute step towards a course of truth and reconciliation that is so long overdue.
Diamond Stingily, Entryways © Diamond Stingily
More information about the exhibition can be found here.
