{"id":9318,"date":"2021-03-18T10:05:58","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T10:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=9318"},"modified":"2021-03-19T14:18:56","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T14:18:56","slug":"amy-sheralds-new-works-depict-everyday-black-americans-in-an-opportunity-to-reclaim-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=9318","title":{"rendered":"Amy Sherald\u2019s New Works Depict Everyday Black Americans In \u2018An Opportunity To Reclaim Time\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amy Sherald\u2019s New Works Depict Everyday Black Americans In \u2018An Opportunity To Reclaim Time\u2019<\/h3>\n
By Natasha Gural<\/pre>\n
Amy Sherald elegantly and gallantly walked into America\u2019s collective consciousness when she took the stage alongside Michelle Obama to unveil her monumental portrait of the nation\u2019s first Black First Lady. Sherald exuded confidence, emerging as a towering figure alongside the woman whose presence, power, and poise always complemented, if not rivaled, that of her legendary husband.<\/p>\n
The joy that emanated from Sherald on February 12, 2018, at the National Portrait Gallery was palpable. A creative force to be reckoned with, few folks outside of the art world knew Sherald\u2019s work or her story, including how the athletic young woman underwent a heart transplant after collapsing at a pharmacy in 2012, when her heart was pumping just 5 percent of available blood.<\/p>\n
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Amy Sherald A bucket full of treasures (Papa gave me sunshine to put in my pockets…) (2020) \u00a9 Amy Sherald. Photo: Joseph Hyde<\/p><\/div>\n
Observing Sherald via Zoom on March 18 for an intimate virtual walkthrough of Hauser & Wirth\u2019s Downtown Arts District complex in Los Angeles, to preview her first solo West Coast exhibition debuting new paintings, was an awe-inspiring look through her precise and particular lens. \u201cAmy Sherald. The Great American Fact\u201d, which opens to the public on Saturday, March 20, and will be on view through June 6, explores the process and purpose of her latest work, compelling the viewer to reexamine the American experience.<\/p>\n
The commissioned portrait was a departure for Sherald, who regards herself as a painter rather than a portraitist, and looks to everyday folks for inspiration in her new works. Entering the public eye was a departure for the unpresuming artist who swept major headlines again last week with news that her portrait of Breonna Taylor will be jointly acquired by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Neither the Obama portrait nor the Taylor portrait will be on display at Hauser & Wirth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m pretty grounded and not very impressed (with) myself in general,\u201d Sherald told Franklin Sirmans, director of the P\u00e9rez Art Museum Miami, who joined via Zoom for an hour-long live conversation. \u201cBut I think the biggest thing that I had to learn how to say is \u2018no\u2019. And because there were so many things that I was being asked to do, I was being pulled out of my studio. \u2026 I need to be in my studio so that I can make the work, you know, but yeah, I’m not very easily impressed with myself, so I think that helps a little bit of low self esteem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sirmans quickly interjected, with humor and hard-earned praise, to shift her narrative toward her immense accomplishments and the message surrounding her newest works.<\/p>\n
\u201cModesty, modesty, modesty. Yeah, beautiful modesty,\u201d Sirmans declared, subverting Sherald\u2019s self-deprecating humility. \u201cFirst and foremost, we touch upon the trials and tribulations of the last year, but within that you’ve managed to keep on producing, and this is very different in specific production right here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turning our gaze to the gripping portrait of Taylor, a 26-year-old medical worker who was murdered in her bed on March 13, 2020, by Louisville police officers who broke into the apartment, Sirmans implored Sherald to \u201cTell us how this painting came into being.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherald was asked to paint Taylor for the cover of \u201cVanity Fair\u201d\u2019s September 2020 special edition focused on activism and guest edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a former national correspondent for \u201cThe Atlantic\u201d and author of \u201cThe Beautiful Struggle\u201d, \u201cBetween the World and Me\u201d, \u201cWe Were Eight Years in Power\u201d, and \u201cThe Water Dancer\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs usual, I got the email and I was a little bit wary about doing it because at that time and it was just like a rush for, you know, these magazines, corporations, and businesses to be in touch with, artists, creative-like people, because what was happening in that moment,\u201d Sherald said frankly. \u201cBut then when I found out that Ta-Nehisi Coates was going to be the guest editor, I knew that they were making the right decisions when it came to making this particular issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mesmerizing shades of Taylor\u2019s dress and the background evoke an outcry of emotion and mood that forces us to look deep into the victim\u2019s eyes in search of justice and empowerment. Just as she \u201cspent a lot of time mixing to get it the right color\u201d for the background of the Obama portrait, Sherald opted to paint Taylor\u2019s dress blue even though the model wore a green one. \u201cAlways looking for the color that’s in between the color that we already know, you know,\u201d Sherald said of the first of her two internationally celebrated commissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s the first time where I didn’t have the model there to photograph,\u201d Sherald said of Taylor. \u201cSo the first thing I did was just try to find as many images of her that I could and I reached out to her mother, Miss Palmer, to see what she could send me (to) get a sense of her style, a sense of her energy, and then I partnered with a Black designer in Atlanta, who sent me some dresses, and she actually made a dress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherald found a model who resembled Taylor and photographed her in the green dress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent a lot of time thinking about what colors should be a part of this piece and what colors would represent her and allow us to focus our attention on her,\u201d Sherald said.<\/p>\n
The folks depicted in the Hauser & Wirth exhibition aren\u2019t famous. They speak to the American experience, the Black experience, the collective experience of all folks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m thinking about embracing my own Americanism and what that journey has been like for the past 10 years,\u201d Sherald said. \u201cThese images are just everyday moments, everyday American moments, everyday Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Literary references are woven into the narratives of Sherald\u2019s new works, with names of the paintings borrowed from quotes from a wide array of authors that resonate with her. The title of the exhibition is derived from American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, and Black liberation activist Anna Julia Haywood Cooper’s 1892 essay that said Black people \u201care the great American fact; the one objective reality on which scholars sharpened their wits, and at which orators and statesmen fired their eloquence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherald depicts her exploration of \u201cpublic Blackness\u201d with sitters and subjects in leisure, at peace in their daily lives, so they\u2019re not bound to the social strife that surrounds every Black Americans. Every playful outfit is a twist on something she\u2019s seen or sparks her creativity. Every detail — from a house that compelled her to stop and ask the owner for permission to depict, to a vintage pickup truck — is curated to build the simple, yet layered, scene for her story of the folks she brings to life. Her subjects command close attention, with their intense expressions and Sherald\u2019s use of grisaille to create a singular skin color.<\/p>\n
To be an American artist is \u201can opportunity to offer work to the art historical narrative, that’s a critique,\u201d said Sherald. \u201cIt’s an opportunity to reclaim time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are going to believe in this American experiment, then when we (must) think about our Americanness,\u201d Sherald said, referencing her new painting of a Black woman wearing a Barbie T-shirt. \u201cWhen we think about an American girl, many different kinds of women should come into our imagination. \u2026 Not just Black women, Asian-American, Mexican-American .. we’re all a part of this pot.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\"\"Natasha Gural<\/strong>\u00a0is a multiple award-winning journalist, writer, and editor with 30 years of editorial experience, including executive roles at The Associated Press, Dow Jones, and Markets Media. A student of literature, art history, and studio art, Natasha has learned from leading scholars at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Oxford University, Clark University, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Natasha has been writing about art since 2002, for multiple publications, including The Associated Press and Forbes. She has traveled extensively to cover major art fairs and events, interviewing a wide array of world-renowned and emerging artists, as well as curators, art historians, collectors, scholars, and aesthetes. Her last contact with the global art world was covering TEFAF Maastricht in 2020. Natasha enjoys observing every level of the creative process, from inception to installation, in studios, galleries, and various spaces. Passionate about the art world, Natasha embraces every opportunity to engage key players to better understand and explain the changing dynamic. She seeks to accurately portray the art ecosystem in an ongoing process that immerses her in the art world. A first-generation American, Natasha was raised bilingual and has always been drawn to the innovators, rebels, and outsiders who break down boundaries and strive to broaden the continuum of art history. Her goal is always to fairly and accurately represent the accomplishments of artists in an effort to collectively celebrate the arts.<\/p>\n
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