Historic Art Exhibition Responds to Racial Disparities

Justified Art! in the Overture Center for the Arts’ Gallery I presents 43 artists living across the country whose works address systemic racial inequities.
 
MADISON, Wis. - May 20, 2015 - PRLog -- The Overture Center for the Arts is home to a groundbreaking art exhibition responding to systemic racial disparities in Madison, Wisconsin, and beyond. Justified Art! invited artists to read and respond to Rev. Alex Gee’s Cap Times essay, “Justified Anger,” which details his experience with racial profiling and discrimination as an African American living in the Madison area. His essay came on the heels of the Race to Equity Report, published by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, which shows that Dane County, despite it’s progressive reputation, has some of the worst racial disparities in the nation.

Works by local artists in the exhibition reflect the lived realities and hopes of a community plagued by state violence and racial injustice, from staggering incarceration and child poverty rates, to pervasive opportunity gaps in education. “Dane County is an economic engine for the state of Wisconsin, and yet, 74% of Black children here are living in poverty,” said Max Puchalsky, one of the exhibition’s curators. “We pride ourselves on virtues like freedom and fairness, yet, we have the highest Black arrest and incarceration rates in the country. We want this artwork to help viewers make the connection between these disparities happening on a local level, and other incidences of state violence and racial oppression happening across the country.”

To highlight these connections and resonances, the exhibition includes artists from New York to Arizona, and artworks dating from 1967 to the present day. More than 120 works were submitted for consideration, the most compelling of which were selected by a jury of three local artists and scholars: Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis, Linda Mathis-Rose, and Leslie Smith III. The resulting group show of 43 artists presents urgent and gripping works in sculpture, neon, installation, painting, drawing, photography, embroidery, and digital collage. Installed salon-style, the curators hope to emphasize conversation among works in order to amplify their collective impact.

Rhea Vedro’s Prison Industrial Complex Coin Series - a collection of larger-than-life metal “coins” depicting young Black men and other marginalized populations - is installed beneath the late Doran London’s Visitation of Diversity, a mixed media montage of inmates and their visitors. Vedro ran after-school programs for teens in New York City, where she saw many of her students incarcerated for crimes of poverty, while London spent 18 years creating portraits of people incarcerated in the Wisconsin prison system. Historically, both coinage and portraiture have glorified the faces of society’s most powerful members. Viewed together, the works manifest and deconstruct these parallel hierarchies, in which the marginalized are given prominence in spaces traditionally reserved for the privileged elite.

On May 1st, hundreds gathered at the Overture Center for a public reception featuring music and poetry, coinciding with the city-wide Spring Gallery Night hosted by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. The reception included a special program of social justice-themed music in the rotunda lobby, sung by members of the choir at Rev. Gee’s church. Upstairs in the Promenade Lounge, the performances were opened with a speech by Lilada Gee, representing the Justified Anger Coalition - a group aiming to address racial disparities in Dane County - in which she cited the work of arts education scholar Dr. Mary Stone Hanley. “Art has been used as a means to record history, shape culture, cultivate imagination, and harness individual and social transformation,” Gee said. “It cannot only be used as a means to generate awareness, but it can also be a catalyst to engage community members to take action around a social issue.”

Readings by Madison Poet Laureates Fabu and Andrea Musher evoked collective memories of the Civil Rights era, followed by Rosita González’ heartfelt recitation of Dear Wonderful You, a letter to adopted and fostered youth. Both Fabu and Rosita are exhibiting artists. The readings segued into dynamic performances by Milwaukee spoken word artists Brit Nicole and Na’ima, accompanied by pianist Montreal Cain - three participants in the Br(OK)en Genius project by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s 2015 Artist to Watch Christopher McIntyre Perceptions, whose photograph Darkest Womb is on display in Justified Art!. Closing the show was Madison-based spoken word artist T. Banks, a recent graduate of UW-Madison’s First Wave program who performed A Tribute to Black Lives Lost to State Violence, in which the artist passionately called out the names of Black citizens killed by the police, including queer and trans people of color whose names are often erased from conversations surrounding police brutality.

Banks’ performance mirrored themes present in several of the visual works in the exhibition. Most notably, Nafis White’s neon work Can I Get a Witness? includes an “extended title” - a running list of names of Black children, men, and women killed by law enforcement, with dates stretching back to 1964. At the top of the list is Tony Robinson, the unarmed 19-year-old shot and killed in March 2015 by Madison police officer Matt Kenny. The label was adapted with White’s permission to include Robinson’s name, as the artist felt strongly that “his name needed to be seen, needed to be called out.”

Like Can I Get A Witness?, Banks’ spoken word performance employs repetition and itemization to document and bear witness to the frequency of racialized killings as they occur across the nation. As a core member of the Young Gifted and Black Coalition - a circle of young leaders determined to end state violence and raise the voice of communities of color - T. Banks is also organizing a Youth Art Showcase co-presented with Justified Art!, featuring 18 original acts by young poets, singers, MC’s, dancers, and visual artists responding to state violence and police brutality disproportionately affecting Black youth.

“We need to listen to those who are most impacted by state violence - our youth - and provide outlets for their creative activism and self-expression,” Banks said. “Our young people need spaces where they can express themselves - where they can feel safe, and empowered. This event is about celebrating them.”

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Wednesday, May 20 from 7-9pm in the Overture Center’s Promenade Hall.

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