Faith Ringgold - Black is beautiful
April 27, 2023 – Paris – by Anne Picq
Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967.
Oil on canvas, two panels, 72 x 144 in (182.9 x 365.8 cm), © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY
“I didn’t want people to be able to look, and look away, because a lot of people do that with art. I want them to look and see. I want to grab their eyes and hold them, because this is America”. Faith Ringgold certainly does grab our eyes, as we stand in front of her huge painting, named American People Series #20: Die, at the Musée Picasso in Paris – she wants us to face the brutality of racism and systemic violence in the United States. When looking at this huge bloody painting, you cannot avoid the references to Guernica, the monumental black and white oil painting that Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) created in 1937, in response to the German aerial bombing of the town of Guernica, in Northern Spain. Faith Ringgold painted her artwork thirty years later, and was indeed deeply influenced by Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece. She could study it often in New York, at the Museum of Modern Art, where the painting remained on loan from 1939 to 1981.
Faith Ringgold, Early Works #25: Self-Portrait, 1965.
Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 in. (127 × 101.6 cm), © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
Faith Ringgold is a myth. Born in 1930 in Harlem, New York, she grew up in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement dedicated to the revival of African-American art. Carrying their legacy, she constantly denounced violence and discriminations, especially those directed against the African-American community. From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, Ringgold took part in all fights. In 1970, she co-founded the Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation (WSABAL) with her daughter Michele. A bold feminist and anti-racist activist, she has inspired generations of artists in the United States. A huge exhibition was dedicated to her vision last year at the New Museum in New York, but it is the first time a French museum presents a retrospective of her work. The connections between Ringgold and Picasso, and more widely with the European masters, are central to the exhibition. Faith Ringgold spent time in Europe in the 1960s, and this very much shaped her artistic vision and her battles.
Along early works, portraits and posters, the most remarkable part of the exhibition is undoubtedly her series of beautiful quilts, which feel like some sort of fabric paintings. Her first quilt, named Echoes of Harlem, was created together with her mother.
As her long series of quilts unfolded, Ringgold began to integrate words and images, as a way to bring new narratives into the official art history. In a series called The French Collection, she references other paintings such as the famous Demoiselles d’Avignon, another Picasso masterpiece from 1907, or portraits of major male artists of the early 20th century. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), for example, is represented on one of those quilts, however he does not appear at the center of the piece, but rather on its side. Instead, the main characters are a group of African-American women artists and civil rights activists, to whom Faith Ringgold wanted to pay homage. Per her words: “with ‘The French Collection’, I wanted to show there were Black people when Picasso, Monet, and Matisse were making art. I wanted to show that African art and Black people had a place in that history”. Her powerful artworks, paintings, quilts, posters and performances give you a different take on the history that you have been told. And you cannot look away either: recent events all too sadly remind us why Faith Ringgold’s work and struggles still resonate so much today.
Faith Ringgold, Early Works #25: Self-Portrait, 1965.
Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 in. (127 × 101.6 cm), © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
Faith Ringgold, American People Series #18: The Flag Is Bleeding, 1967.
Oil on canvas, two panels, 72 x 96 in (182.9 x 243.8 cm), © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
Faith Ringgold, Slave Rape #2: Run You Might Get Away, 1972.
Oil on canvas with fabric, 92 3/8 × 52 3/8 in. (234.6 × 133 cm), © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Tom Powel
Faith Ringgold - Black is beautiful
From January 31 to July 2, 2023
Musée Picasso Paris