By John David Back
I visited the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the 30 Americans exhibit on a rainy Tuesday in August. The museum was quiet and sparsely peopled. I had many of the pieces to myself, which gave me ample time to absorb each one.
I can’t say exactly what I expected to see. Perhaps some Africa-flavored tribal art, or vast landscapes of cotton fields populated by faceless black bodies in homespun shirts. Perhaps some graphic photography of the cruelty of Jim Crow and the countless African Americans murdered. I expected to be presented academically with the evils of slavery and its lasting effects, and to be just-the-right-amount of uncomfortable in my whiteness, tsk-tsking my forefathers for their sins.
Instead, 30 Americans grabbed me by the front of my shirt and shook me. I was slapped in the face by my own naivety. In the end, I found myself turning a corner and coming into a room with a single display in it, and coming to tears.
This piece, “Duck, Duck Noose” by Gary Simmons, is sequestered. (photo credit: John David Back)
INTENSE, HEART-RENDING
I’m going to go back and walk through this exhibit five more times before it ends.
30 Americans at Cincinnati Art Museum in Eden Park through Aug. 28 features the work of (you guessed it!) 30 American artists. These artists all happen to be African American. The exhibit includes sculptures, paintings, experimental works, videos, a rock with a short afro on it, and more. The first painting you are greeted with is called “Sleep” and is probably 30 feet long and 15 feet tall. It features the body of a young black man in repose, with only a sheet covering him. It’s incredible.
The exhibit only gets more intense from here.
“Sleep” Kehinde Wiley (photo credit: John David Back)
Another work on the first floor, by photographer Carrie Mae Weems, was a collection of photographs used to prove to white supremacists in the 1850s that African Americans were a substandard species. Weems stained them blood-red, and etched phrases like “AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL DEBATE” in the glass over the naked torsos of several black subjects. I wanted to claw my eyes out in shame. It was heart-rending and beautiful in its poignancy and points a finger at absurdity.
TWO AMERICAN DREAMS
The true epiphany I had while making my slow way through 30 Americans didn’t revolve around the quality of the art. (The art was amazing, by the way: thoughtful, edgy, modern and socially relevant.) What knocked me on my ass was the realization that white and black Americans are living two different versions of the American Dream. My own American Dream consists of cliches fed to children like “Work hard and you can be whatever you want to be!” The Black American Dream exists with the addition of thriving despite social inequality, dramatic pay gaps, institutional racism, and so much more.
30 Americans accomplishes with perfection what art is intended to do: hold a mirror up to our reactions to certain works and force us to acknowledge them. As a white American, it was a necessary gut-check.
These works show us the pride, the excitement, the rage and the creativity of the modern African American artist. They also help to lay bare, through works like the black boy with a Nike logo branded into the side of his head, the gross objectification and marginalization of an entire race of people. Currently. Today. Right this very minute. These are not faceless slaves from 1820 in Georgia. These are Americans who live on your street and go to your Starbucks and your grade school and somehow still live in a separate America from you.
If you do anything to better yourself in 2016, go see this exhibit. It’s free. Parking is $4. The museum is open every day but Monday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and you have until Aug. 28 to see 30 Americans.
John David Back is a Cincinnati native who lives and works in OTR. He’s an avid reader and a mediocre writer who loves the experience of art and beauty. Tell him what he should experience and send fan mail to johndavidback@gmail.com.
Hi John. I'm your biggest fan. This article is the best article of all time.
Hi John. I'm your biggest fan. This article is the best article of all time.
View lessLoved your article. This exhibit has so much potential to open the minds of us all, thank you!
Loved your article. This exhibit has so much potential to open the minds of us all, thank you!
View less