CHATTANOOGA: Whitfield Lovell

Whitfield Lovell, Autour du Monde, 2008, Conté crayon on wood panels with globes, 102 x 189 x 171 inches.
Image via huntermuseum.org.

Whitfield Lovell: Deep River

May 18 – October 13, 2013

HUNTER MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

10 Bluff View

Chattanooga, TN

Whitfield Lovell, a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship winner, is internationally renowned for his thought-provoking images of anonymous African Americans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Using old black and white photographs taken in the early and mid-twentieth century, and more recently, imagery from contemporary sources, the Bronx born and raised artist pays tribute to his ancestors by spiriting them into the present.

Lovell's artwork is filtered through his personal history and memories. His father is a self-taught amateur photographer who constantly took candid and posed shots of his family and friends; these family photos, combined with Lovell's extensive travels throughout Europe, the Americas and parts of Africa have inspired much of his work.

The Hunter Museum exhibition features artwork created since 2008, including the artist's signature tableaux that are constructed of intricate charcoal drawings on vintage wood juxtaposed with found objects. Lovell prefers to leave the history of his salvaged wood intact, never removing the layers of age paint, adding only his Conté crayon drawings and the objects he has collected over the years. He fully engages our senses and emotions, especially in pieces such as Pago Pago and Autour du Monde. Both works feature uniformed soldiers, referencing the service of African Americans through two world wars for a country that still didn't acknowledge their civil or human rights and a military that was not fully integrated. Billie Holiday's rendition of the song, I Cover the Waterfront, emanates from Pago Pago, seductively lulling the viewer into a sense of longing. Numerous globes are placed in front of Autour du Monde invoking both the adventure of travel and dangers of fighting abroad for soldiers.

Also included in the exhibition are a number of mixed media drawings from Lovell's ongoing Kin series. Each of the Kin works features a portrait along with a single object.

The highlight of this important exhibition is Deep River, the large site-specific installation that Lovell has created especially specifically for the Hunter. Lovell's multi-media space explores the legacy of African Americans who fled from slavery in pursuit of freedom during the Civil War.

Whitfield Lovell: Deep River is organized by the Hunter Museum of American Art.

Exhibit link

ACQUISITION: Whitfield Lovell / Smith College Museum of Art

Whitfield Lovell. Deuce, 2011. Lithograph printed in black on paper.
© Whitfield Lovell. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York. 

This print by Whitfield Lovell was created at the Smith College Print Workshop in 2011 with the assistance of master printer Maurice Sanchez. Held annually in the Harnish Graphics Studio in Hillyer Hall, the Print Workshop brings together visual artists and master printers to collaborate on a limited-edition print. The general public is invited to observe the creative process, and students are given the opportunity to assist in the making of a print. Last year’s Print Workshop was held in conjunction with SCMA’s exhibition More Than You Know: Works by Whitfield Lovell (January 28 – May 1, 2011). 

Born in the Bronx, Whitfield Lovell’s earliest experience making art was assisting his father, an amateur photographer, in the darkroom. Lovell’s drawings and prints are often worked up from the early twentieth century photographs of African-Americans he collects from flea markets, junk shops and estate sales. This double portrait of a man suggests the identification photographs Lovell often uses as models for his work—an unsmiling passport photograph or mug shot. The severe profile and frontal views also recall racist ethnographic photographs or illustrations of African-Americans. Although the images that Lovell plays on evoke restriction and oppression, Lovell’s gorgeously rendered print lends dignity and a sense of personal identity to another otherwise anonymous face.

Whitfield Lovell’s portraits investigate the ways in which human identity is represented and perceived. While an identification photograph frames identity or personhood in terms of membership in social groups, Lovell insists upon viewing identity in individualistic terms. The identity of the man in Deuce is fundamentally mysterious and irreducible. That said, Lovell does provide some clues as to the identity of his subject. The title Deuce, which refers to the double view of its subject, can also refer to the two in cards or dice. This secondary meaning is reinforced by the inversion of the second head in the print, recalling the pictures or symbols on playing cards. Deuce can also mean bad luck or mischief—it’s an old-fashioned curse word (“a deuce on him!”). Is this man the trouble maker, or the one in trouble?

**Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. **

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