Arts & Culture Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 20) Exhibitions : : By Tobey Albright Playground Hiroshima Series .1983. Silk screen print on Somerset paper Ringling Museum narrative is simply a story. With this understanding you might say, “The struggle for freedom and justice is the primary narrative of America.” Jacob Lawrence has observed and expressed this story from an African-American perspective, unparalleled in American art, for more than 65 years. Establishing common ground for Americans, his work transcends racial boundaries, encouraging a migration of possibility when considering the role of the artist in society. In the Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing of the Ringling Museum of Art, 35 silk-screened prints will be exhibited through May 4, bringing together three important series of limited edition prints. The exhibition comes from the collection of Alitash Kebede of Los Angeles, CA, and is organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions. Genesis, Hiroshima and Toussaint L’Ouverture, the three series of a Showcases highly acclaimed African-American artist Jacob Lawrence Jan. 26 - May 4, 2008 prints were produced in the last few decades of Lawrence’s life and offer a compelling synoptic presentation of what Lawrence considered his life ‘s work to be: namely, a continuation. Jacob Lawrence produced his first major works in the late 1930s, most notably the Toussaint L’Ouverture series, images that document the life of the revolutionary hero and Haiti’s struggle for independence. To produce the prints, which are much larger in scale than the original paintings, Lawrence reworked many of the images to translate them to silk-screen. Toussaint L’Ouverture was born a slave and rose to become commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army. He later coordinated an effort to draw up Haiti’s first democratic constitution. Before the new republic was firmly established, he was arrested and sent to Paris, where he died in prison one year later. The following year, Haiti became the first black Western republic. Lawrence’s Genesis series focuses on creation, inspired by his memory of being baptized in the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York’s Harlem, around 1932. Later he admitted that experiences such as this one “stay with you and it is uncommon to realize the impact an experience may have on you at the time.” The Hiroshima series was developed when Lawrence was invited by the Limited Editions Club of New York to illustrate a book of his choosing from a list of the club’s many titles. He selected the book Hiroshima, written by John Hersey, due to its “power, insight, scope and sensitivity.” He then illustrated a series of events that were taking place at the time of the bomb dropping on Hiroshima. By reducing these scenarios to graphic arrangements of organic movement and geometric forms, he moves the visible identity to become invisible, and the nefarious is starkly entwined within the most basic of human activities. While narrative provides us with a structure to comprehend the ideas and events around us, Jacob Lawrence’s model reminds us that it ís also a vital framework for questioning and arguing the predominant themes of our society. By remembering the narratives of the past, we begin to understand their means of reoccurrence in our present and the problems we may face in the future. Market Hiroshima Series .1983. Silk screen print on Somerset paper 20 : : arts and culture magazine ringling.org www.artsandculturemag.com http://www.artsandculturemag.com http://ringling.org
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