![]() One hundred years after Catlett’s birth, her work endures as vital social commentary. ![]() Her sculpture Seated Figure celebrates the power, beauty and fortitude of black women: the figure sits tall, her head raised, back straight and feet planted firmly before her.Īnd visitors will certainly connect current events to Catlett’s 1970 lithograph The Torture of Mothers, where the artist visualizes the agony of a mother who has lost her son to police brutality. There’s a particular focus on how Bannarn, Anderson and Stewart – artists who are not black and female – navigate both stereotypes and controversial subject matter when presenting black women in their work.Ĭatlett, who has four works in the section, dedicated her career to accurately depicting black and Mexican women. The section Brown Skin Ladies juxtaposes works by Elizabeth Catlett, Henry Bannarn, Frank Hartley Anderson and Arthur Stewart to show how various American artists have challenged common depictions of black women. Racist understandings of black domestic workers have led to iconic caricatures like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, while beauty ideals that exclude entire groups of black women are represented in Barbie dolls. Together, these artists remind viewers of the ways racism is reflected in our commercial products. ![]() Smokin’ Joe Ain’t J'Mama (1978), by Hank Willis Thomas. Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Historical Representations of Race in the South and Beyond examines why and how artists depicted African Americans, from the Civil War to the Great Depression.īlack Like Me: African American Portraits looks at how white artists depicted black subjects in 20th-century American portraiture.īrown Skin Ladies: Picturing the Black Woman illustrates how American artists, both male and female, represent African American women.īody and Soul: Rhythmic Representations presents depictions of black musicians, and looks at how black artists use music as a painterly technique.įrom Mammy and Mose to Madison Avenue: Advertising and the Black Image examines how black people and black culture are represented in commercial culture.Īltogether, Black Like Who? presents 28 works by 19 artists to show just how fundamental iterations of race are to the American experience.įor example, the section “From Mammy and Mose to Madison Avenue” exhibits photographs by Sheila Pree Bright, Hank Willis Thomas and David Levinthal. The show doesn’t claim to be an exhaustive examination of depictions of blackness in American art, but it does illuminate areas of American visual culture where blackness has been prominently defined. The exhibit also takes into account the motives and beliefs of the artists, both black and white. The exhibit Black Like Who?, comprising works from the Birmingham Museum of Art’s permanent collection and private collectors, considers how political, cultural and aesthetic interests influence the artistic representations of black people and black culture at particular historical moments. They’ve resisted the ways whites often mythologized or satirized blackness, and have presented counter images: works of art that depict or comment on how we visualize our culture and ourselves.
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