In a new exhibition at The New York Historical and just in time for Black History Month, numerous photographs spotlight the life and spirit of New York City’s Black population during the late 20th century. Although Picture Stories: Photographs by Arlene Gottfried is not solely focused on the Black experience, the subject matter does make up a significant and powerful portion of the show.
Gottfried, a White woman, noted in a 2015 interview how living in Crown Heights in the 1980s led her to document the Black community. “At that time (the 80s), in my neighborhood, a lot of people moved out – the White flight syndrome. When I’d go out to school, I’d notice a moving truck every day, going to the suburbs. Then it became African-American and Puerto Rican, those were the main groups in that time. So my neighborhood influenced me very much. Being able to connect with certain subject matter that had I not lived in that environment, might’ve felt distanced or disconnected.”
During the opening reception for the exhibition, Gottfried’s connection to her Black subjects was palpable in photographs such as Eternal Light Choir Performing. After coming across the choir at a Gospel Fest in an abandoned gas station in New York City’s Lower East Side, Gottfried eventually joined the choir and documented them in a book The Eternal Light. In other photographs such as Boy with Afro on Bicycle in front of Trash Cans she depicts everyday life for Black people in New York City.
Exhibition curator Marilyn S. Kushner hopes that the show makes underrepresented aspects of New York City’s history accessible and engaging for audiences. “Some people read history and some people look at history,” she said. “Arlene Gottfried has us looking at history that some words can’t describe and that’s the beauty of what she did. She showed us a part of New York that some people don’t know but that she knew intimately and that she loved and it loved her.”
Gottfried, the older sister of the late comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried, died in 2017. The exhibition marks the recent acquisition by The New York Historical, of almost 300 of Gottfried’s photographs. Thus, ensuring that her legacy and the stories of the Black people she documented will live on.
Elizabeth Catlett, a highlight at The Winter Show
Another artist who captured the Black experience is the legendary sculptor and printmaker, Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012). At last month’s The Winter Show, the Dolan/Maxwell booth presented several of her works. The showing comes as Catlett is experiencing a resurgence with a retrospective that recently closed at the Brooklyn Museum and will soon open on March 9 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Ron Rumford, the director of Dolan/Maxwell, finds the renewed interest in Catlett’s work to be occurring later than he’d like, but is nonetheless grateful it’s happening. “Long-overdue, long-overdue. I’ve been saying that for years,” he said. “I could never understand why she wasn’t given the, you know, the full scholarly treatment, and finally she has it.”
In works such as Standing Strong which Rumford exhibited at the prestigious fair, Catlett’s commitment to creating uplifting images of Black women in particular is on clear display. A regal bronze figure stands tall with one hand behind her back and the other on top of her head, as her face is proudly turned upward at an angle. Catlett’s role as an artist and activist was informed by her life experiences with racial, gender, and economic inequities. She was the granddaughter of formerly enslaved relatives, grew up during the Great Depression, and became an influential figure of the Black Arts Movement (BAM). According to the Museum of Modern Art, “Her leftist political involvement led the US to label her an ‘undesirable alien,’ and for over a decade, she was barred from entering the country of her birth (her US citizenship was not reinstated until 2002).” Despite such challenges she remained committed to using her art as a tool for social justice. In 1970, at the Conference on the Functional Aspects of Black Art (CONFABA), a historic event for BAM, she delivered a speech and stated, “For I have been, and am currently, and always hope to be a Black Revolutionary Artist, and all that it implies!”
As a new generation is discovering Catlett’s work, Rumford hopes that her message of empowerment is instilled in viewers. “There’s a very strong social message. She looks to uplift…I think that’s at the core of what she’s about is that if we don’t value ourselves, no one will value us. And she’s valuing women because she recognizes that they’re the ones doing a lot of the heavy lifting and not getting quite the credit for it.”
The column, On the “A” w/Souleo, covers the arts, culture, entertainment, party, and philanthropy scene in Harlem and beyond and is written by Souleo.
