Self-identity Can Shape A Community, Specifically Through Black Portraiture
By Lilly Reed
Peering into Black Portraiture: Hanes Gallery Exhibit from the Cochran Collection
“A portrait does not merely record someone’s features...but says something about who he or she is, offering a vivid sense of a real person’s presence.”
That’s how the Metropolitan Museum of Art defines portraiture and the poignant connection made between an individual subject and the artist.
In my two years as a gallery assistant, Wake Forest University’s Hanes Gallery has brought many challenging and creative exhibits to campus. The current exhibit - Explorations of Self: Black Portraiture from the Cochran Collection - certainly has furthered my interest in and knowledge of African-American and Black heritage and history through art. Experiencing the art over the past few months has also changed how I peer inside and assess my own identity.
The exquisite variety of portraits reveals the many ways art can be interpreted, as well as exposing stereotypes. I spoke with Lynn Huffard, WFU senior and one of 16 WFU students who curated the exhibit, on her experience with the exhibit.
“A portrait is meant to offer a vivid sense of a person's presence,” said Huffard, “When we look at Art History, persons of color or marginalized status were very rarely given a "presence" in the portrait.”
Huffard also noted that the exhibit, “confronts this problem. In every work the artist's presence or person depicted is so strongly there, unwavering. This exhibit (helps us) begin to question how (all) people are presented throughout media, art, and culture, how affected our view of the world is by these images, especially those which negate the presence of persons of color.”
Joe Overstreet, Mahogany Hall, 1989
© 2021 Valerie Maynard / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Overstreet: © 2021 Joe Overstreet / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Mayhew: Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York
Regardless of our willingness to accept it, there are stereotypes everywhere we look, especially in art. The Cochran Collection, which runs at the Hanes Gallery through the end of March 2021, presents an insightful display of the unheard voices of Black artists from past to present.
“This exhibit empowers the visitor to question what identity means and how people of particular identities are often misrepresented, and how we present our own identity everyday,” said Huffard, an art history and communications double major with a french minor from Wilton, Connecticut.
This spectacular collection of Wes and Missy Cochran originates from the 1970s and contributes to a larger, historical and artistic narrative of American art.
“The Cochrans are not elitist art people - Missy is a school teacher and Wes a stone mason. Their approach to collecting art was to build strong relationships and friendships with artists and choose work they loved. The fact this exhibit is a product of such a labor of love from the outset of the collection proves that art is for everyone and people shouldn't feel intimidated or like they don't know enough to visit the gallery,” shared Huffard, who is also WFU Style’s president this year.
The artists in the collection, unfortunately many posthumously, are finally getting recognition for works they produced at a time when institutions didn't really make space for them, Huffard added.
“[These are artists who] are all finally having a spotlight on them in the broader art world,” said Huffard, “and, this exhibition is an incredible opportunity to see artwork first-hand by artists who in the future are going to become canonical in Western Art History.”
Valerie Maynard, Unfinished Business
© 2021 Valerie Maynard / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Overstreet: © 2021 Joe Overstreet / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Mayhew: Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York
Artists in the exhibit include Emma Amos, Lorna Simpson, Willie Cole, Jack Whitten, Adrian Piper, Alma Thomas, Beverly Buchanan, Juan Logan, Howardena Pindell, Jim Alexander, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, Camille Billops, Romare Bearden, Richard Mayhew, Jacob Lawrence, and others.
“Many of the pieces touch on the idea of a collective identity as it relates to the black experience,” Huffard said, “The art speaks to each other in the (exhibition) spaces, both juxtapositionally and cohesively.
“Everytime we are in the space, giving tours, looking at and talking about the work, new interpretations, ideas, and discourse about the art's respective meaning comes to light. That's definitely been the best part of the process.” Huffard shared. “Walking into a space like a gallery or museum tends to have a healing power. The most powerful part of visiting this exhibit today is the absence of screens.
“Everything we are doing now is so mediated, even the people we "see" on zoom can feel imagined or unreal these days. Walking into a gallery, and seeing tangible, real objects, seeing the trace of an artist's hand- is in such wonderful opposition to the screens we look at all the time.”
Finally, I asked Huffard with everything going on in our country, our often heated political climate, and fights for justice, how does this exhibit further how art and artists make statements?
She said there are many opportunities to be doing work that is engaged with today's social issues.
“I hope to continue seeing artists create and be presented fairly. Institutionally (at Wake Forest University), we need to continue to intervene, have the tough conversations, and make productive change. I want our exhibit to help start the conversation...to see a greater emphasis placed on the arts, or at least be more acknowledged and progressed by the administration so more exhibits like this one - student curated or otherwise - can call productive discourse to our campus, and make it a more accepting place to be.”
Richard Mayhew, Summertime
© 2021 Valerie Maynard / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Overstreet: © 2021 Joe Overstreet / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Mayhew: Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York
