On Monday, the first day of my course, we were required to meet at the Tate Modern where we would continue our research for our current project; Dissent and Resistance.
The first exhibition I visited was 'Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power', which had artworks from early as 1963. The display surrounded the theme of the American civil rights movement for black equality and to abolish segregation in the early 60's. There is a wide range of powerful, vibrant and emotional collages, painting, murals, photography and much more creative media.
I particularly loved the bold graphic artworks in the display, and how they represent powerful direct statement and play with black, white and red connoting strength, like these images above. I would like to try to experiment with a clear graphic-like way when creating my final outcome to deliver my message.
An artist that grabbed my attention was Wadsworth Jarrel, who uses powerful words that represent the Black Civil Rights Movement in electric colours, which is why I particularly loved his. His paintings, at first glance, are colourful and almost joyful depictions of Black American political characters, such as Malcom X and Angela Davis, but at further inspection, you see that the paintings are made up of words that reveal more of their stories for their fight against of Black injustice. This creates a very powerful message and almost a contradiction to the colours used.
I continued to walk around the other exhibits in the Tate and get further research and inspirations for my personal project.
Another artist that portrayed a very dominant and strong concept in her work was Carrie Mae Weems, who depicted the history of Black Americans through bold black, red and grey images overlayed with subtle grey text in 'From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried'. The series was laid out in a timeline, from when Africa was first discovered to slavery to the Civil Rights Movement, which showed you the turmoils black people have been through. Each picture had grey text, which wasn't very obvious at first glance over the bold pictures, but when you properly study the display you uncover the harsh but true reality behind Black American history. This created a very emotional, thoughtful and powerful message.
The piece 'Monument for the Living' by Marwan Rechmaoui really stood out to me for its simple and minimalistic but strong and stable aesthetic. Although this piece represents the history of the conflict in Beirut, I interpreted it in relation to my gentrification idea I had from the Welcome Collection. This display majorly inspired me to further my idea and how I could use this structure as inspiration to my final outcome.
