5
Sherald often draws on imagery—a beauty queen, a sailor returning from war, a farmer, a white picket fence—that symbolizes American identity and history. Simultaneously acknowledging and critical of the sustained resonance of such national myths and related ideas of freedom, beauty, and success, her work addresses the absence of Black people from these defining stories and invites reflection on their misrepresentations and omissions, both past and present. The title of this exhibition, American Sublime, hints at this complexity. It invokes Elizabeth Alexander’s 2005 poetry collection of the same title, which considers centuries of African American creativity, history, and culture. At the same time, it nods to Sherald’s interest in the philosophical concept of the sublime—or being overcome by emotion in the face of art or the natural world. As her paintings demonstrate, this same emotional groundswell can be summoned by the American people, in all their range and beauty.
Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, 2018
Amy Sherald, Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, 2018. Oil on canvas, 100 x 67 x 2.5 in. (254 x 170.1 x 6.35 cm). Baltimore Museum of Art, Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photograph by Joseph Hyde
This painting represents a turning point in Sherald’s work, as evidenced by the near-human scale of the figures and the complexity of the composition. Here, the artist’s view has expanded to include a detailed landscape and two figures, one who seems to be fully aware of the viewer and one who is mesmerized by a rocket taking off in the distance. Since the “space race” of the late 1950s, gathering to watch a rocket launch either in person or on television has become an American pastime and a source of great pride in one of the nation’s most aspirational endeavors.