Curatorial Honesty and The Black Value — Black History Month Florence: III Edition
Founded in 2016, Black History Month Florence (BHMF) is a cross institutional network for black cultural production to celebrate the diversity of Afro-descendent Cultures in the local context, breaking it down into 8 different cultural celebrations with events all happening in February.
The Black Value itself is a BHMF Art occasion to examine Blackness in a Global context and the historical romanticism of an outsider’s point of view on US History and socio-political currents to shatter the constraints of a Black American monolith. Set in the prestigious Bottega Giotti and co-organised by The American Academy in Rome and with the support of Galleria Continua it is certainly not an event to miss.
The 7 piece show, co-curated by Janine Gaelle Dieudji and Justin Randolph Thompson, presents a thought-provoking collection of both emerging and established artists whom are all Rome Prize Fellows from the American Academy in Rome.
It is interesting to note that co-curator Justin Randolph Thompson, who also co-founded the Black History Month Florence, is in fact an artist himself. When faced with the question of whether or not his background has helped his curatorial practices, he strongly affirms the case. Asserting how the role of the curator is to mediate an artist’s vision to the audience, to speak for the artists truthfully and to present them and help them proliferate their vision honestly, not to speak for himself or to gain monetary benefits. Those elements are trivial at best in proper curatorial practices.
His insights as an artist has also helped him greatly in terms of the technical aspects of his curatorial practices, arranging his exhibition in such a way that will help portray the message that the artists want to portray, tailoring them to the exhibition properly.
One artist, Sanford Biggers, whose work will be one of the first you view can testify to this. Biggers’ research on the Underground Railroad, and on the supposed use of quilts as coded signposts, led Biggers to begin painting on them, the work he has presented within the show is his latest and comes from a weaving of antique quilts which he has collected over the years.
His work is doused in satire, thus it is unavoidable to talk about the challenges of getting humour across in visual art. Especially in how black artists can be held back — not being able to be abstract, humorous, visceral, and abject in their own right.
“Some of this might be my own historical sense of restriction, but the work has to do so many things when it comes from a person of colour,” he said. “And comedy can be misread, and misinterpreted, and become problematic. But that’s what art does: it problematises things. So I think I’m finding more comfort in that.”
His views seem to encompass fully what to expect in the exhibition. Many eye squinting spectators, either fully lost in thought, or just really lost after all. See for yourself from February 8th to March 17th 2018.
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Justin Randolph Thompson (born 1979, New York) is a new media artist and educator. Living between Italy and the US since 2001, Thompson is a co-founder of Black History Month Florence. He has exhibited internationally and participated in numerous residencies in the US and in Europe in venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Reina Sofia, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, The Mobile Museum of Art, the American Academy in Rome and more. Thompson is the recipient of numerous awards including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, a Franklin Furnace Fund Grant, The FCA Emergency Grant, The EAF from Socrates Sculpture Park and a Jerome Prize from Franconia Sculpture Park and a Visual Artist Grant from the Marcelino Botin Fundation.
Sanford Biggers (born 1970, Los Angeles) is a Harlem-based interdisciplinary artist who works in film/video, installation, sculpture, music, and performance. An L.A. native, he has lived and worked in New York City since 1999. He received a BA from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1998. He first received critical attention when his collaborative work with David Ellis, Mandala of the B-Bodhisattva II, was included in the exhibition “Freestyle”, curated by Thelma Golden at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2001. Since, his works have been presented internationally including the Tate Modern in London, the Renaissance Society in Chicago, Prospect 1 in New Orleans and the Whitney Biennial, the Kitchen and Performa 07 (curated by Roselee Goldberg) in New York.
