London-based Green Family Art Foundation’s Black Bodies, White Spaces will be featured as an exhibition has opted to introduce them in Dallas according to a Dallas Morning News article from December 29 which reports,
“Curated by London-based Aindrea Emelife at the Green Family Art Foundation, it’s filled to the brim with large paintings by many of the most important living Black artists, including Nina Chanel Abney, Amy Sherald, Derek Fordjour, Jordan Casteel, Deborah Roberts, David Hammons and Dallas-based Jammie Holmes, among many others.
The works feature various iterations of the Black body. Visitors enter a kaleidoscope of painting styles and perspectives that is a master class of not just identity but also the variety of painterly techniques being deployed by artists across the world.
The exhibition title is inspired by the 1952 book Black Skin, White Masks by French philosopher Frantz Fanon. The book applies historical critique, psychoanalysis and personal experiences to the complex ways that identity is produced, particularly Blackness.”
When the Green Family announced their exhibition, they stated that their purpose was to show art as a resistance according to an ArtForum article which observes,
“What we see is political. Taking up space is resistance. Walking through the gallery space hung with pictures, museum-goers act out and internalize a version of history… what happens when this space is infiltrated by those history has sought to exclude? With Black Bodies, White Spaces: Invisibility & Hypervisibility we see the coming together of artists exploring the Black body in painting and posit how doing so is a form of resistance.” – Aindrea Emelife, curator
The artwork in this exhibition depicts a legacy of artists who have expanded the artistic language and public understanding of the role and function of ‘Black art’. From David Hammons’ seminal, politicized printing plate body prints to Henry Taylor’s Guernica-style bandit scene, to Jadé Fadojutimi’s explorations of the body and gesture through abstraction, this show extols the variability of the body and the modes of representing Blackness through it.
The foundation’s mission is to provide a venue for, make grants to museums for the benefit of, and educate others about contemporary artists we believe communicate important ideas that are relevant and discussion worthy today and in the future.”
Their website displays and showcases many different artworks that will be featured in the physical gallery space.
