Page 11 - Boca Club News - February '23

Boca Club News, Page 11

“Whitfield Lovell: Passages” Major Exhibit from page 10

By drawing these one time this person walked
dignified portraits with the earth, spoke and lived and
grace and humanity, dreamed, just as we are doing
Lovell is honoring the today. I look for the humanity
memory of their suffering that I can find from each of
and perseverance. “The the nameless images I choose
important thing is to to work from.” Throughout
make the art good, so history, their experiences,
that 100 years from now psychology and collective
people would want to memory have often been
look at this work. As an overlooked or marginalized.
artist, you have to find Lovell’s work, steeped in the
joy in the act of creating,” nation’s history, rescues a past
says Lovell. that was hidden from us.
E a c h re a l i st i c
portrait is inspired by More About the Exhibition
the antique photographs “W hi tfie ld L ovel l:
he finds in flea markets, Passages” opens with Lovell’s
discarded family multimedia experience, Deep
albums, mug shots and Head with Flowers, 1992 River, honoring the perilous
archives. Lovell renders journey enslaved people took
each portrait directly onto old wooden boards with knots, crossing the Tennessee River
holes, nails, traces of paint and other signs of age. On to find asylum at “Camp Deep River, 2013
working with these vintage wood panels, what someone Contraband” in Chattanooga
might consider to be a flaw in the found object becomes during the Civil War. The work is inspired by the rich legacy encountered before one’s eyes have adjusted to the dim light
truly part of the artwork itself: “I’m working with historical of African American resilience and community building in the and Deep River’s powerful visual elements. Three giant video
images, and the wood itself has history already. The wood passage from slavery to freedom. “Camp Contraband was a projections of a river filmed at night wash up onto the Museum
comes from old homes, where old souls once inhabited– Union Army encampment where runaway slaves who could walls all around, accompanied by the sounds of lapping water
so I think allowing the wood to have character is very make it across the river were given sanctuary and protected to surround the senses. The recreated river surrounds a large
important.” The striations of the wood often come through from being recaptured by slave hunters,” says Lovell. The mound of soil centered on the floor. Arranged around the loamy
onto the faces of the unnamed persons. experiential work includes a haunting rendition of the dirt, embedded within the mound are utensils, pans, lamps,
Lovell then adds found household objects such as clothing, traditional Spiritual “Deep River” with its elegiac lyric “I want ropes, boots, weapons, a trumpet, a Bible and other objects
dishes or other mementos onto the wooden panel itself, or on to cross over into campground.” that helped the freedom seekers survive. Fifty-six large wooden
the floor near each portrait. Finally, Lovell chooses a title for Once behind Union army lines, these freedom seekers discs encircle the dirt mound, each with a handmade drawing
the tableau using words or phrases with multiple possible, formed encampments of their own numbering in the thousands, of a person whose identity has been lost to time.
often contradictory, meanings. He also uses titles of songs, creating communities of care and self-determination. By The artist chose to use images of people from multiple
and often incorporates recorded music of early Blues tunes, 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued time periods to represent how freedom is something we are
traditional slave songs, spirituals and gospel music. These by President Abraham Lincoln, tens of thousands of always struggling with, during all times. Lovell invites viewers
tableaux inspire viewers to imagine how each person lived a “contrabands” had enlisted and fought on the winning side to contemplate the larger human quest for equality, and the
full life, richly filled with nuances. of the Union Army. At least 10 percent of the Union Army pursuit of a better life that crosses beyond time and geography.
“I have avoided making images of famous people, and was comprised of African Americans, and ultimately these The section of this installation entitled Flight features a wood
instead I use found images of so-called ‘anonymous’ people, contraband camps became cornerstones of several Black cabinet, 33 suitcases, a music stand, chest, sheet music,
whose names we don’t know and whose lives we can’t know communities in cities in the South. chains, and rope. The suitcases emit sounds of birds chirping
about because they were erased from history,” says Lovell. “At A harmony of ethereal sounds and rich earthy aromas are to symbolize freedom and flight.
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