Coming to Jones Road Part 2 #2: We Here Aunt Emmy Got Us Now, 2010 - detail
At the age of 88 years young, African American artist Faith Ringgold has borne witness to, and documented in a series of paintings and quilts the dramas, trials and tribulations of her race in a country that has been notorious for its ill treatment of African Americans. This survey of her work is the first solo show of her work in any UK or European art institution. Ringgold was born in Harlem in the 1930s, the height of the Harlem Renaissance movement, and has through her career as an activist, author, editor and artist sought to bear testament to American life, highlighting her personal identity, struggles with weight issues, as well as those in feminism, race, class and sex through her paintings and quilts. Interestingly Ringgold's early paintings with a narrow colour palette could easily perhaps have been the inspiration behind those "Hope" posters created to boost the Obama presidential campaign by graffiti artist Shephard Fairey. The quilts are also interesting in that Ringgold was inspired by Tibetan thangka's and is carrying on a personal family tradition, in that her mother and grandmother (both born into slavery), were quilters, and she carries on the tradition but uses the medium to give caustic commentary on the modern black experience where little sadly, seems to have changed for African Americans.
American People #14: Portrait of an American Youth, 1964
American People #9: The American Dream, 1964
American People #17: The Artist and his Model, 1966
American People #10: Study Now, 1964
Black Light #11: US Black America, 1969
Black Light #9: American Spectrum, 1969
American People #15: Hide Little Children, 1966
American People #19: US Postage Stamp Commemorating the Advent of Black Power, 1967
Windows of the Wedding series, 1974
Mothers Quilt, 1983
Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima Quilt, 1983
Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima Quilt - detail
Coming to Jones Road Part 2 series
Coming to Jones Road Part 2: Sojourner Truth Tanka #2: Ain't I A Woman? 2010
Coming to Jones Road Part 2: Martin Luther King Jr. Tanka #3: I Have A Dream, 2010
Coming to Jones Road Part 2 #2: We Here Aunt Emmy Got Us Now, 2010
Subway Graffiti #2 of 3, 1987
Subway Graffiti #2 of 3 - detail
The American Collection #6: The Flag is Bleeding #2, 1997
American Collection #1: We Came To America, 1997
On the morning of my visit I was fortunate enough to actually see the artist herself, present (seated below), addressing a group of school children about the issues that have informed her work, and then taking questions from visitors about her life.
Faith Ringgold
until 8th September
Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London