Shifting Landscapes

Through Jan 25

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Working with materials sourced from their local environments, self- and community-taught Black artists in the southeastern US have produced hybrid collage-paintings, complex sculptures, and abstractly patterned textiles that derive from their lived experiences. Martha Jane Pettway, one of a group of quiltmakers from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, makes her art from functional remnants—her quilt tops are pieced together from scraps of relatives’ clothes and used sugar sacks. Similarly, Joe Minter’s assembled sculptures share a visual vocabulary with the African Village in America, the immersive sculptural environment that he began working on in his Birmingham, Alabama, backyard in 1989. Purvis Young often portrayed the occupants of his historically segregated neighborhood in Miami on pieces of locally scavenged wood. Alabama artist and musician Lonnie Holley, who since the late 1970s has practiced what he calls “improvisational creativity,” makes sculptures and installations out of salvaged objects, while Bessie Harvey credits her sculptures, made from found wood and branches, to divine inspiration. Through these artists’ vision, everyday materials are transformed into something enduring, carrying the stories of their origins forward.

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Colorful abstract painting with figures in motion, vibrant reds, oranges, and blues, suggesting a lively street scene or celebration.

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Shifting Landscapes

Southern Assemblage

5

Purvis Young
Overtown, 1988

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On the Hour

Shifting Landscapes

Southern Assemblage

5

Purvis YoungOvertown, 1988

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Purvis Young
Overtown, 1988

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection