2023-04-30 17:01:02
Miami, Apr 30 (EFE).- The American artist Whitfield Lovell, internationally known for his installations around pencil or charcoal portraits of anonymous African-Americans from other times, tells EFE that “departing from history does not help the shared future” of humans.
“It amazes me – he affirms in an interview – that someone does not want children and adults to understand our mutual histories and learn from mistakes and injustice. As human beings, it is our responsibility, and it should be our hope, to make the world a little better than when we found it.”
This is how he responds when asked about the attempts to limit or directly prevent the teaching of the history of African-Americans in US states governed by the Republican Party, as is the case in Florida, where precisely it can be seen until the 21st of May the largest retrospective of his work so far.
The Boca Raton Museum of Art in southeast Florida is the first stop on “Passages,” an exhibition produced by the American Federation of Arts that will later tour museums in Virginia, Arkansas, Ohio, North Carolina and Texas.
In a single space of almost 700 square meters (7,500 square feet) are concentrated works created over a period of 25 years by an artist determined to tell the “lost” or “erased” story of black people, as he is. , in the United States, and raise universal issues such as memory, freedom and identity.
IMMERSION IN THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
“Passages” contains two multi-sensory, multimedia experiences, “Deep River” and “Visitation”, each comprised of various works by Lovell, as well as individual pieces.
The first recreates the crossing of the Tennessee River that slaves made in the midst of the Civil War from Confederate territory to a Union Army camp in search of freedom, and the second the “Black Wall Street”, as a thriving African-American community became known. which was established in Jackson Ward, Richmond, Virginia, in the 1860s.
“All the works in this show are deeply personal, I remember when I was doing them and what I was trying to achieve,” says the artist, who makes his portraits, some life-size, from old photographs of ordinary people. found at flea markets, garage sales, and antique dealers.
They are the same places where he finds the worn-out objects that accompany the portraits in his works.
“My grandparents gave me a rich sense of what it can mean to survive in this world through their stories and appreciation for those who came before us. Perhaps the reason I’m drawn to including used and worn objects is because it’s another way of adding a poetic or symbolic element”.
THE PAST REVERBERATES IN THE PRESENT
What is clear is that the past is a magnet for this artist born in The Bronx (New York) 63 years ago.
“The lives of people we’ll never know from the past, whether they’re ancestors or people unrelated, have a profound and ongoing effect on our lives. I guess I subscribe to something Albert Einstein once said: ‘The distinction between past, present and future is just a stubbornly persistent illusion'”.
Lovell recalls how important a trip he made in 1977 to Spain, the first country he saw outside the US, and a visit to the Prado Museum in Madrid were for him as a future artist.
“I was particularly struck by a painting by Velázquez, which had a profound and spiritual effect on me. The painter had communicated with me through centuries and cultures and I suddenly understood the role of the artist. It was a strong, visceral experience and never before. I’ve forgotten it,” he says.
“Even so, it has been a privilege to be an artist, to see the world through the eyes of an artist. The human experience can produce enormous sadness and extraordinary beauty at the same time,” he adds.
When asked if his art is political, Lovell, whose works are in the collections of major US museums, says that’s not the point. “Everyone has to find their own voice, their own language.”
Ana Mengotti
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