Every generation has a precious few artists whose works come to embody the very heart and soul of the time. Faith Ringgold is one of those artists. Best known for her hand-painted quilts, the ninety-three-year-old artist, writer, educator and activist has charted a sixty-year career dedicated to making political artworks that are urgent, demanding and honest. The exhibition “Faith Ringgold: American People” at the Museum of Contemporary Art is an expansive review of Ringgold’s poignant artworks contextualized by the political climate of the time and her own political beliefs. Six decades of paintings, sculptures, quilts, children’s books, interviews and archival material are woven together to tell not only the story of an artist and an activist but also the story of Blackness, marginalization and activism in America.
Wide-ranging biographical exhibitions are typically reserved for the most important of cultural figures. With connections to feminist movements, pro-immigration movements, pro-Black moments, and pretty much any other movement for marginalized people, Faith Ringgold stands as a monumental cultural figure as an activist alone. But as an artist she is undeniable. “American People” traces her boundary-pushing career by showing how she merged painting, weaving, textiles and words into a unique and timeless style of her own.
The exhibition begins in the early part of Ringgold’s career; a time that was characterized by her subdued but expressive figurative paintings. The elegant and quietly evocative figures of Black and white men and women in her paintings reflect the tension in the gender and racial divide of the 1960s. From there, as her political activism continues to develop, her style changes as well. Into the late 1960s and early 1970s, the pieces that represent this time in her life are less subtle and more explicitly political. She combines punchy words with aggressive, sometimes violent, imagery that confronts the viewer directly. As an activist she is demanding, and so is her artwork. As the show moves further into the 1970s, we see the beginning of the experimental, deeply Afrocentric part of her career. She moves away from Western art styles and starts shaping beautiful and ornate African textiles in sculptures of people. With faces that are reminiscent of traditional African masks, she leans into a pan-Africanism that would continue to inform her work.
Undoubtedly, the quilts are the centerpieces of the exhibition. The individual tapestries from her famous quilts series are objects to behold. The intricate, hand-painted stories vacillate between dreamlike and nightmarish. The scenes in the quilt incorporate her own personal history as well as Black and American history to tell stories that resonate far beyond the individual. Each eccentric and maximalist piece has incredible depth. The works are incomparable and need to be seen in person to be fully comprehended.
The continual evolution of her work shows her relentless pursuit of progress. She’s constantly moving forward. Throughout different phases of her career, her style changed, but she stayed true to a central theme, the experience of Blackness. Black art is both easy and hard to define. Simply put, it encompasses the experiences of Black people, all parts of it, from the political to the mundane. Black art is Afrofuturism and optimism, but is also the brutal realities of the Black experience. Faith Ringgold is Black art, and “American People” is a shout, an unequivocal demand to be heard.
“Faith Ringgold: American People” is exactly what a museum show should be. A study of an individual and collective history lesson told through incredible visual art. The collection of Ringgold’s works manages to take massive political and historical moments and brings them down to earth by telling the story through the artwork of an individual who lived during that time. And it gives the historical narrative as much curatorial care as the artworks. A less daring museum wouldn’t be able to show an exhibition of this complexity. Through broad swaths of a fraught history, it asks a lot of its viewers. That’s the nature of Ringgold’s work, demanding, relentless. If you want to understand Black art history, its roots, and its evolution, this exhibition is a must-view.
“Faith Ringgold: American People” is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 East Chicago through February 25.
