February 21, 2024
Faith Ringgold
This week our cultural club planned a team outing to see the Faith Ringgold exhibit at the MCA.
A prolific artist, activist, and author, Ringgold used various mediums to address the racism and sexism she experienced in everyday life. The exhibit showcases her extensive body of work that has spanned over five decades and incorporates paintings that depict American life during civil rights, political posters, soft sculptures, and perhaps her most well-known medium — story quilts.
"No other creative field is as closed to those who are not white and male as is the visual arts. After I decided to be an artist, the first thing that I had to believe was that I, a black woman, could penetrate the art scene, and that, further, I could do so without sacrificing one iota of my blackness or my femaleness or my humanity." — Faith Ringgold
The exhibit goes in chronological order with her early 1960s pieces ( The American Series and Black Light Series) occupying the first rooms. In collaboration with her mother, a fashion designer and seamstress, Ringgold began working more with textiles in the 1970s. The switch was fueled by a desire to get away from the Western European traditions of painting. These pieces include tankas, soft sculptures that represent both real and fictional people and masks. Around this time, Ringgold also became an activist. While much of her art is political, it was in the 70s that she began making posters for organizations such as the Black Panthers. By the 1980s Ringgold was creating her famous story quilts. Her most popular series of quilts was later photographed for her award-winning children's book, Tar Beach.
UPCOMING EVENT
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