In October 2021, we visited AS220, a non-profit community arts organization in Providence, to see the exhibition Black Visual Practice. The show was curated by k. funmilayo aileru and featured work by Rhiannon Landry, Kego Fae, Freeman T. Freeman, Rodney Davis, Nasirah Dupont, and Abenda Sohn.
Being of the spirit is being of community. Spirit is an energy that holds a community together and propels its people forward. Black visual work, creative expressions of spirit, moves within and beyond the heart and the mind. Spirit empowers us to seek healing, create joy, and cultivate the conditions to thrive. Spirit as Black visual work moves us to organize, to conjure visions. Black visual practice is where we envision and enact change.
Black Visual Practice is a group exhibition that conjures the aesthetic wisdom and vision of Black visual artists based in Providence and Rhode Island. Through digital and analog means, the pieces in this exhibition radiate the magic of Black visual practice through curved lines, organic shapes, earth tones, and celestial textures. Held together by many distinct approaches, this exhibition brings together generations of ancestral knowledge. This exhibition aims to expand our understanding of Black visual work beyond production, challenging its viewers to engage Black visual practice as a spiritual process.
Black Visual Practice uplifts young and elder Black artistic voices and centers trans, queer, and femme expression. The exhibition honors the enduring, intersecting struggles of Black aesthetic wisdom and vision. It exalts Black community and being.
k. funmilayo aileru
We appreciated the diversity of work shown and the diversity of artists exhibited, especially making note of the age range of the artists. The show featured work by young emerging artists, along with older artists who had been working in the art world for many years. There were many different approaches to Black visual practice, yet the work shown built on one another to create a vibrant representation of Black community.
While there, we also had the opportunity to chat with Neal Walsh, the gallery director of AS220’s galleries. Neal provided a general history of AS220’s galleries, noting that AS220 focuses on featuring shows that are uncensored and unjuried. While this serves to create opportunities for community members to exhibit their original work, it also means that with the growth of the organization, the wait list for exhibiting is long and can be a bit of a barrier.
In the gallery, many of us were drawn to the fact that some of the works on paper were left unframed, and Neal pointed out that the cost of framing can be quite high and is often a forgotten barrier that can prevent artists from exhibiting work in more traditional gallery spaces. For example, a young artist presented work that seemed to be pulled right out of their sketchbook, with the scraggly edges of the paper still visible. In a more traditional gallery space, this work may seem out of place and incomplete, yet this sense of incompleteness is what gave this work vibrancy and life.
A comparison was drawn to the work of this class and the work of the art world in general. While we may want a sense of closure and completeness in the work that we do, what can sometimes be more generative is acknowledging messiness and incompleteness.
