Cauleen Smith: Mutualities

Building upon the scholarly study that underlies her practice, Smith has selected six books for visitors to read within the exhibition. Three of their covers are depicted in her Firespitters series, while the other three are from her series BLK FMNNST Loaner Library, 1989–2019.

For BLK FMNNST Loaner Library, 1989–2019, Smith created thirty-eight drawings of books whose subjects include science fiction, Black resistance, cinematography, and Indigenous teachings. Although the drawings from this series are not currently on view, the Whitney’s Frances Mulhall Achilles Library and Special Collections has assembled the full collection of books, which can be accessed in the Museum’s library. Please email library@whitney.org to make an appointment.

Books featured in BLK FMNNST Loaner Library, 1989–2019: 

Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, Thought Forms

Dionne Brand, At the Full and Change of the Moon

Dionne Brand, Land to Light On

Dionne Brand, Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging

Gwendolyn Brooks, Riot

Tisa Bryant, Unexplained Presence

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Kathleen Collins, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?

Combahee River Collective, The Combahee River Collective Statement: Black Feminist Organizing in the Seventies and Eighties

Samuel Delany, The Mad Man

Fred H. Detmers, American Cinematographer Manual, Sixth Edition

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Wendy Makoons Geniusz, Our Knowledge Is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings

Marcel Griaule, Conversations with Ogotemmeli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas

Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route

Rob Herwig, 128 Houseplants You Can Grow

Zora Neale Hurston, Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" 

Jaime Jiménez, Juguetes: A Photo-documentary of Traditional Toys and Games from the Dominican Republic

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Jethro Kloss, Back to Eden: The Classic Guide to Herbal Medicine, Natural Foods, and Home Remedies since 1939

Norio Kobayashi, Bonsai: Miniature Potted Trees. Tourist Library #13

Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

Camara Laye, The Radiance of the King

Katherine McKittrick, Syliva Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis

Charles Mingus, Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus

Trinh T. Minh-ha, When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender, and Cultural Politics

Toni Morrison, The Origin of Others

Toni Morrison, Sula

Julius Nyerere, Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism

Georges Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

John Peterson, High-Flying Kites

Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition

Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

Hortense Spillers, Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture

Robert Stone, Day Hikes around Los Angeles

Jean Toomer, Cane

Sanzo Wada, A Dictionary of Color Combinations

Grace B. Ward and Onas M. Ward, Colorful Desert Wildflowers: California and Arizona