Press Release
February 21 – April 6, 2019
SkotonGallery is pleased to present Jae and Wadsworth Jarrell: Master Works/Old And New – a selection of significant works by the influentialnartists best known for their involvement with the Black Arts Movement of then1960s and 1970s. This will be the first show at the gallery for both artists. Thenreception is on Thursday, February 21, 6-8pm. The artists will be present.
Wadsworthnand Jae Jarrell are founding members and leading figures of the legendarynChicago artists? group AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) – thenBlack artists collective that defined the visual aesthetic of the Black ArtsnMovement of the 1960s and 1970s. Other founding members were Jeff Donaldson,nGerard Williams and Barbara Jones-Hogu. Founded in 1968 the group strived to createnworks that were positive and committed to social responsibility as well asnpromote pride in Black culture and heritage. Among the group?s main objectivenwas the need to understand and express the visual principles that defined blacknculture while drawing on their concerns and experiences as black Americans. Innthe words of Wadsworth Jarrell: Most ofnthe art during the sixties were labeled as protest art, especially art ofnAfrican-Americans. We escaped that label because we focused on our heritageninstead of protesting injustice meted out by mainstream America. We weren?tnjust a group of enthusiastic artists making art. A lot of art made during thatnperiod had little or no aesthetic qualities, and by artists with limitednskills. We were all skillful artists, and our aim was to make an impression asna Revolutionary group by creating African-American aesthetic.
This exhibition consists of anselection of pertinent works from 1972-2019 in diverse media including drawing,npainting, print, sculpture/fashion design that speak to the layered experiencesnof both artists. Their works are readilynrecognizable and dense with visual complexities that reflect an awareness ofnfunction and experiment, harmony and dissonance as well as the complications ofnmodern urban life. Throughout their careers, Wadsworth, a painter, and Jae, a clothing, furniture, and fabricndesigner, have celebrated the struggles, strengths, and beauty of AfricannAmericans in their art with a resolutely modern aesthetic that is original asnwell as formally and materially complex. The visual impact is direct andnforceful in keeping with their lasting conviction that art can affect socialnchange.
Wadsworth Jarrell (b. 1929, Albany, Georgia) and Jae Jarrell (b.n1935, Cleveland, Ohio) are included in the seminal exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of BlacknPower, 1963-1983, organized by the Tate Modern, London in 2017 with curatorsnMark Godfrey and Zoe Whitley. It traveled to the Crystal Bridges Museum ofnAmerican Art, Bentonville, Arkansas and the Brooklyn Museum in 2018-2019, andnscheduled to open at the Broad Museum. Los Angeles, March 23-September 1, 2019.nOther exhibitions include AfriCOBRA:nMessages to the People, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Fl. in 2018; WenWanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85, Brooklyn Museum and ICAnBoston, 2017; Heritage: Wadsworth and Jae Jarrell, The Cleveland Museum of Art,nCleveland, OH, 2017; FESTAC, Lagos,nNigeria, 1977; AfrCOBRA II, HowardnUniversity, Washington DC, 1972 and AfriCOBRAnI, Studio Museum in Harlem, 1970. Collections include the Brooklyn Museum,nNY; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, The High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia; NationalnMuseum of African American Art and Culture, Washington DC, Cleveland Museum ofnArt, Cleveland, Ohio among others. The artists live and work in Cleveland,nOhio.
Jaenand Wadsworth Jarrell: Familial Bonds
In 1968 Jae and Wadsworth Jarrell, Jeff Donaldson,nBarbara Jones-Hogu, and Gerald Williams founded AfriCOBRA (the African Communenof Bad Relevant Artists). They started gathering regularly in Wadsworth?snstudio in Chicago with a specific objective in mind: to create an approach tonart that was distinctly and intrinsically tied to their own background asnAfrican-Americans. In a country that remained largely anti-Black, AfriCOBRA?snaesthetic and philosophical principles were not solely a counterproposal to thendominant, Eurocentric and marginalizing standards of Western culture. Abovenall, their art should tell the world about the power, persistence, and beautynof African heritage in its own right. In the words of Wadsworth, ?Africannpeople are the forerunners, innovators, creators? and ?the hip.?
As the only couple among the five founding members,nWadsworth and Jae in both of their work specifically reflected their belief innthe importance of the family as the basis for broader, communal change. Byndoing so, they put a traditional concept at the center and beginning of twonhighly unconventional and remarkable careers. Black Family (1968), Wadsworth?s first work as an AfriCOBRAnmember, depicts a quintessential American nuclear family and includes portraitsnof his wife Jae and their first child Wadsworth Jr. Jae?s suede dress, Brothers Surrounding Sis (1970), on thenother hand, illustrates their understanding of familial bonds as an expansivenidea that starts with the nuclear family, but extends to include the members ofnAfriCOBRA and reaches far beyond into the streets and cities of America.
Jae?s successful career as an entrepreneur and hernconcurrent move to take on fashion as an artistic medium and vehicle for changenhave been defying racist and sexist norms for nearly five decades. Her fashionndesigns incorporate a broad range of graphic elements such as brick walls,ngraffiti, colorful bandoliers, references to jazz, as well as differentnmaterials such as suede, textiles, and found objects. Her most recent work featuresncombinations of handmade garments and decorative elementsnfrom furniture and vintage appliances embedded within larger forms, extendingnher work beyond the practice of fashion design into the realm of sculpture. Itnwas also a family-related encounter that led to the most significant stylisticnand technical shift within Wadsworth?s oeuvre: in the mid-1980s, inspired by andrawing by one of his daughters, he started to incorporate zigzag lines creatednwith the use of a trowel and round, geometric body shapes into his drawings,npaintings, and sculptures.
The common thread in Jae and Wadsworth?s work is thenconnection between the small and the grand, the deeply personal and largernsocietal questions. In the same way that their understanding of the familynradiates outward from husband and wife to include their children, fellownartists, and ultimately culture at large, their engagement with music, fashion,ndesign, and history is only a tool for a much larger quest: for their art tonserve as a methodical tool for restoration and rejuvenation within Blackncommunities.
RetonTh?ring, 2019
Chairnof Contemporary Art
Museumnof Fine Art
Boston,nMA
