Amidst the construction chaos at the Portland Art Museum for the Rothko Pavilion that will connect the museum’s two larger buildings, Africa Fashion opened to the public on November 19. The exhibition arrives in Portland after a 2022 debut at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and its most recent stint at the Brooklyn Museum.
The Portland iteration of the show, which joins the museum’s expansive current exhibition Black Artists of Oregon, includes more than 50 outfits by 40 designers from 21 different countries and “honors the irresistible creativity, ingenuity, and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashions.” In the words of Christine Checinska, the show’s curator and the first curator of African and African diaspora fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the show focuses on “abundance rather than lack,” a reversal of the way Africa is often portrayed in Western contexts.
The exhibition’s Portland installation, thanks to the coordinated efforts of PAM’s Minor White Curator of Photography, Julia Dolan, and the local architectural firm LEVER Architecture, is flawless. The undulating, stepped dais that accommodates the mannequins in the largest space of the exhibition, the Maribeth Collins Gallery, not only facilitates viewing the clothing from all angles but also gives the impression of a sculptural catwalk. The platform doesn’t move, and neither do the mannequins, but the space left me with the undeniable impression of motion and momentum.
Dynamism of display is the only viable approach to showcasing the visual intrigue of the fashions on display. Imane Ayissi’s brilliant magenta satin couture gown that incorporates the traditional grass fringe of the designer’s native Cameroon sets the tone for the exhibition: The fashions on display are as innovative as they are culturally resonant.
In addition to the outfits themselves, the exhibition includes photographs and other ephemera such as magazine covers and commemorative cloth fragments, such as this one depicting Nelson Mandela for the African National Congress from 1991. The vitrines are impeccable; wall colors are chosen perfectly to contrast the visuals of the clothing; written framing gives information both about individual works and relevant context to help viewers.
The timeline of the exhibition begins in the mid-20th century with the African independence movements, and continues to the present day. In her remarks at the press opening on Friday, November 17, Checinska spoke of the show as emblematic of Afrofuturism and Afrotopia, imagining all that Africa is now and can be in the future.
The press preview for Africa Fashion was exactly what I expect in a press preview. There was excitement over the new exhibit, and the assembled journalists, donors, and a couple of invited guests were happy to be there and to listen to the museum director and curators’ framing of the new exhibit. The exhibit itself is exhilarating, and I found myself jockeying for viewing positions to see the displays: Everyone seemed intent on seeing the same thing at the same time.
The opening of Africa Fashion was noteworthy to me in contrast to the last press opening at the Portland Art Museum, for the exhibit Black Artists of Oregon on September 8. Both center work by people of the African diaspora. But as exhibitions, they operate differently and in fact are fundamentally different. Writing a review of Africa Fashion gave me no pause. I’ve been trying to write about Black Artists of Oregon for the last two-plus months.
The event in early September for Black Artists of Oregon was billed as an “opening celebration,” and a celebration it was, with the press preview part tacked on. Instead of the small assortment of people taking notes and thinking about deadlines (journalists) and the collection of people clad in subtly expensive clothes (donors), with a few invited guests, the September event was overwhelmed with non-journalist, non-donor, invited guests. I can’t remember seeing the galleries so full: It felt like a party where almost everyone knew each other, or if they didn’t know each other, they knew someone who knew someone else and needed to be introduced. There was embracing and joy amongst what was, it is relevant to note, a primarily Black audience.
Whereas in the Africa Fashion preview the PAM and curatorial staff spoke first and then we viewed the exhibition, in the Black Artists in Oregon exhibit, which was curated by Intisar Abioto, the galleries were open before the program began. In September, many of the artists and their families were present. I can’t remember ever seeing so many people taking pictures of themselves with the art; posed photographs that captured not just the art in the space but also captured their presence with that art in the space. Maneuvering for viewing position wasn’t as difficult as maneuvering through the space, trying not to be an unwelcome presence in other people’s snapshots.
The energy at the opening festivities was palpable. The curator’s sister, Amenta Abioto, gave a vocal performance, and there were extended performances by dancers and percussionists. The festivities continued throughout the opening weekend and are celebrated in this short video published by the museum. When Intisar Abioto spoke about the exhibition and what it meant to have this exhibition in the Portland Art Museum, I saw more than one attendee moved to tears. Abioto’s speech included the following charge: “I want people to think about what it means for Black people to be in the museum space and feel safe.”
When artist Bobby Fouther spoke, he mentioned that he has always loved being in New York and Washington, D.C., because of the Black arts community in those cities. He said that September night was the first time he felt that community in Portland. It was a remarkable event.
It was also more than two months ago. I intended to write the Black Artists of Oregon review quickly. It should have been an easy task. The premise of the show is appealing. I like writing about shows at the Portland Art Museum. I’ve written about the work of artists in the show. I’ve edited stories that ArtsWatch has published on other artists in the show. The show boasts the work of students and current and former colleagues from PNCA. I went to, and was impressed by, the opening.
Yet I couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that that review – the quick one that mentions how important it is to have a show of work by Black artists working in Oregon at the Portland Art Museum and hits on a couple of standout works – would gravely miss the mark. Multiple visits to the show, a long conversation with Abioto, and seeing Africa Fashion helped me to figure out why, and the issues are interrelated: (1) this exhibition is not an endpoint; (2) what is deserving of attention exceeds what is on display.
Black Artists in Oregon is curated by “photographer, dancer, and writer” Intisar Abioto. Abioto has become a fixture of the Portland art scene since her arrival in 2010. She started the Instagram account @theblackportlanders, using street photography and conversation to “show the breadth of the Black communities in Portland, OR.” Her energy and enthusiasm is seemingly limitless. ArtsWatch has featured many of her projects, including a discussion of her projects with Dmae Lo Roberts for a Stage and Studio podcast on ArtsWatch last year.
The current exhibition at PAM grew out of Abioto’s research on Black artists in Oregon, begun in 2018 as part of a Community Storytelling Fellowship grant from Oregon Humanities. The 2019 story from that grant, “Black Mark, Black Legend,” has all the hallmarks and energy of the starting gate of a project deserving years of investment of time and energy. The article features longer profiles of Thelma Johnson Streat and Bobby Fouther, and names several other Black artists working in Oregon whose work isn’t well-documented in the historical record for future consideration.
The leap from the 2019 story to the 2023 exhibition isn’t so much a leap as a rocket launch: The exhibition includes work by 69 artists from Oregon’s past and present. Identifying all of those artists and securing their work for exhibition was a major undertaking. While some of the artists are well-known, many are not, and without Abioto’s tireless enthusiasm for the project they would have been overlooked. Funding for the exhibition came from several prestigious grants, including the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Meyer Memorial Trust, the Ford Family Foundation, and others.
The space in the museum is full. The walls, particularly in two long, narrow gallery spaces, feel especially laden; the works are almost crowded together. The congestion opens up in the largest gallery space, purposefully designed to highlight a low stage in the center of the room.
My initial impression of the exhibition in September was that I wanted more information than was available in the museum. Of the 69 artists featured in the show there were far more names I didn’t recognize than those I did, and I wanted to know more about those artists – who they were, what their experiences in Oregon were, how the curator saw the work as contributing to the larger narrative of the Black artistic community in the state.
The Bloomberg Connects audio tour does provide some of this background. (I didn’t have headphones on my first visit, and didn’t realize that there was a transcript available through the app.) The audio clips, attached by numbers or QR codes to individual works, are excellent. Most feature Abioto providing a frame for the artists to talk about their work, often exactly about how it relates to Black identity and lived experience in Oregon. There are also, to date, six episodes of the Art Unbound podcast that feature conversations between Abioto and artists from the exhibition along with DJ Ambush of the Numberz FM. The podcast episodes also pick up these themes.
Engaging with these alternate didactics definitely helped crack open the show for me, particularly in helping me to understand how much time and energy had gone into even getting the works that are in the show amassed in the museum. Of course, Africa Fashion necessitated energy to come to fruition as well, but the resources allotment seems different, the work of a dedicated Senior Curator of African and Diaspora Textiles and Fashion (Dr. Christine Checinska) and a “Project Curator” (Elisabeth Murray). Abioto had support from the museum, but much of the work wasn’t of a kind that museum staff could necessarily assist, it was embodied research, and only by living could Abioto engage in it.
Oregon ArtsWatch
Chamber Music Northwest The Old Church Strings Portland Oregon
African Fashion and a ‘rocket launch’ of Black Artists of Oregon
At the Portland Art Museum, a shining show of fashion from Africa, an energetic celebration of Black artists that feels like the start of a much bigger picture – and a third show, “Throughlines,” that mixes and matches from the museum collections.
NOVEMBER 27, 2023
|
LAUREL REED PAVIC
CULTURE, VISUAL ART
Installation view of Africa Fashion with mannequins in diverse
Installation view of Africa Fashion. Courtesy of Portland Art Museum/Charles Campbell
Amidst the construction chaos at the Portland Art Museum for the Rothko Pavilion that will connect the museum’s two larger buildings, Africa Fashion opened to the public on November 19. The exhibition arrives in Portland after a 2022 debut at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and its most recent stint at the Brooklyn Museum.
The Portland iteration of the show, which joins the museum’s expansive current exhibition Black Artists of Oregon, includes more than 50 outfits by 40 designers from 21 different countries and “honors the irresistible creativity, ingenuity, and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashions.” In the words of Christine Checinska, the show’s curator and the first curator of African and African diaspora fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the show focuses on “abundance rather than lack,” a reversal of the way Africa is often portrayed in Western contexts.
The exhibition’s Portland installation, thanks to the coordinated efforts of PAM’s Minor White Curator of Photography, Julia Dolan, and the local architectural firm LEVER Architecture, is flawless. The undulating, stepped dais that accommodates the mannequins in the largest space of the exhibition, the Maribeth Collins Gallery, not only facilitates viewing the clothing from all angles but also gives the impression of a sculptural catwalk. The platform doesn’t move, and neither do the mannequins, but the space left me with the undeniable impression of motion and momentum.
Model in pink satin Goan on catwalk, dress with extensive fringe at the waist and from the shoulder down the opposite sleeve
Mbeuk Idourrou collection, Imane Ayissi, Paris, France, Autumn/Winter 2019. Photo: Fabrice Malard / Courtesy of Imane Ayissi
Dynamism of display is the only viable approach to showcasing the visual intrigue of the fashions on display. Imane Ayissi’s brilliant magenta satin couture gown that incorporates the traditional grass fringe of the designer’s native Cameroon sets the tone for the exhibition: The fashions on display are as innovative as they are culturally resonant.
green commemorative cloth with Nelson Mandela’s face in roundrels
AP3 ANC Nelson Mandela commemorative cloth South Africa, 1991 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
In addition to the outfits themselves, the exhibition includes photographs and other ephemera such as magazine covers and commemorative cloth fragments, such as this one depicting Nelson Mandela for the African National Congress from 1991. The vitrines are impeccable; wall colors are chosen perfectly to contrast the visuals of the clothing; written framing gives information both about individual works and relevant context to help viewers.
Installation view of fashion exhibition at the Portland Art Museum. Central image of a green dress in a vitrine
Installation view of Africa Fashion. Courtesy of Portland Art Museum/Charles Campbell
The timeline of the exhibition begins in the mid-20th century with the African independence movements, and continues to the present day. In her remarks at the press opening on Friday, November 17, Checinska spoke of the show as emblematic of Afrofuturism and Afrotopia, imagining all that Africa is now and can be in the future.
The press preview for Africa Fashion was exactly what I expect in a press preview. There was excitement over the new exhibit, and the assembled journalists, donors, and a couple of invited guests were happy to be there and to listen to the museum director and curators’ framing of the new exhibit. The exhibit itself is exhilarating, and I found myself jockeying for viewing positions to see the displays: Everyone seemed intent on seeing the same thing at the same time.
Sponsor
Chamber Music Northwest The Old Church Strings Portland Oregon
The opening of Africa Fashion was noteworthy to me in contrast to the last press opening at the Portland Art Museum, for the exhibit Black Artists of Oregon on September 8. Both center work by people of the African diaspora. But as exhibitions, they operate differently and in fact are fundamentally different. Writing a review of Africa Fashion gave me no pause. I’ve been trying to write about Black Artists of Oregon for the last two-plus months.
***
The event in early September for Black Artists of Oregon was billed as an “opening celebration,” and a celebration it was, with the press preview part tacked on. Instead of the small assortment of people taking notes and thinking about deadlines (journalists) and the collection of people clad in subtly expensive clothes (donors), with a few invited guests, the September event was overwhelmed with non-journalist, non-donor, invited guests. I can’t remember seeing the galleries so full: It felt like a party where almost everyone knew each other, or if they didn’t know each other, they knew someone who knew someone else and needed to be introduced. There was embracing and joy amongst what was, it is relevant to note, a primarily Black audience.
Whereas in the Africa Fashion preview the PAM and curatorial staff spoke first and then we viewed the exhibition, in the Black Artists in Oregon exhibit, which was curated by Intisar Abioto, the galleries were open before the program began. In September, many of the artists and their families were present. I can’t remember ever seeing so many people taking pictures of themselves with the art; posed photographs that captured not just the art in the space but also captured their presence with that art in the space. Maneuvering for viewing position wasn’t as difficult as maneuvering through the space, trying not to be an unwelcome presence in other people’s snapshots.
installation view of Black Artists of Oregon
Installation view of Black Artists of Oregon. Photo courtesy of exhibition participating artist Jason Hill and the Portland Art Museum.
The energy at the opening festivities was palpable. The curator’s sister, Amenta Abioto, gave a vocal performance, and there were extended performances by dancers and percussionists. The festivities continued throughout the opening weekend and are celebrated in this short video published by the museum. When Intisar Abioto spoke about the exhibition and what it meant to have this exhibition in the Portland Art Museum, I saw more than one attendee moved to tears. Abioto’s speech included the following charge: “I want people to think about what it means for Black people to be in the museum space and feel safe.”
When artist Bobby Fouther spoke, he mentioned that he has always loved being in New York and Washington, D.C., because of the Black arts community in those cities. He said that September night was the first time he felt that community in Portland. It was a remarkable event.
It was also more than two months ago.
Sponsor
Portland Playhouse A Christmas Carol Portland Oregon
I intended to write the Black Artists of Oregon review quickly. It should have been an easy task. The premise of the show is appealing. I like writing about shows at the Portland Art Museum. I’ve written about the work of artists in the show. I’ve edited stories that ArtsWatch has published on other artists in the show. The show boasts the work of students and current and former colleagues from PNCA. I went to, and was impressed by, the opening.
portrait of a woman in a red dress with a black choker, the words the advocate travel in stencils
Jeremy Okai Davis, The Advocate, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 48”x60”
Yet I couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that that review – the quick one that mentions how important it is to have a show of work by Black artists working in Oregon at the Portland Art Museum and hits on a couple of standout works – would gravely miss the mark. Multiple visits to the show, a long conversation with Abioto, and seeing Africa Fashion helped me to figure out why, and the issues are interrelated: (1) this exhibition is not an endpoint; (2) what is deserving of attention exceeds what is on display.
***
Black Artists in Oregon is curated by “photographer, dancer, and writer” Intisar Abioto. Abioto has become a fixture of the Portland art scene since her arrival in 2010. She started the Instagram account @theblackportlanders, using street photography and conversation to “show the breadth of the Black communities in Portland, OR.” Her energy and enthusiasm is seemingly limitless. ArtsWatch has featured many of her projects, including a discussion of her projects with Dmae Lo Roberts for a Stage and Studio podcast on ArtsWatch last year.
The current exhibition at PAM grew out of Abioto’s research on Black artists in Oregon, begun in 2018 as part of a Community Storytelling Fellowship grant from Oregon Humanities. The 2019 story from that grant, “Black Mark, Black Legend,” has all the hallmarks and energy of the starting gate of a project deserving years of investment of time and energy. The article features longer profiles of Thelma Johnson Streat and Bobby Fouther, and names several other Black artists working in Oregon whose work isn’t well-documented in the historical record for future consideration.
The leap from the 2019 story to the 2023 exhibition isn’t so much a leap as a rocket launch: The exhibition includes work by 69 artists from Oregon’s past and present. Identifying all of those artists and securing their work for exhibition was a major undertaking. While some of the artists are well-known, many are not, and without Abioto’s tireless enthusiasm for the project they would have been overlooked. Funding for the exhibition came from several prestigious grants, including the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Meyer Memorial Trust, the Ford Family Foundation, and others.
installation view of gallery for Black Artists of Oregon
Installation view of Black Artists of Oregon. Photo courtesy of exhibition participating artist Jason Hill and the Portland Art Museum.
The space in the museum is full. The walls, particularly in two long, narrow gallery spaces, feel especially laden; the works are almost crowded together. The congestion opens up in the largest gallery space, purposefully designed to highlight a low stage in the center of the room.
My initial impression of the exhibition in September was that I wanted more information than was available in the museum. Of the 69 artists featured in the show there were far more names I didn’t recognize than those I did, and I wanted to know more about those artists – who they were, what their experiences in Oregon were, how the curator saw the work as contributing to the larger narrative of the Black artistic community in the state.
The Bloomberg Connects audio tour does provide some of this background. (I didn’t have headphones on my first visit, and didn’t realize that there was a transcript available through the app.) The audio clips, attached by numbers or QR codes to individual works, are excellent. Most feature Abioto providing a frame for the artists to talk about their work, often exactly about how it relates to Black identity and lived experience in Oregon. There are also, to date, six episodes of the Art Unbound podcast that feature conversations between Abioto and artists from the exhibition along with DJ Ambush of the Numberz FM. The podcast episodes also pick up these themes.
Engaging with these alternate didactics definitely helped crack open the show for me, particularly in helping me to understand how much time and energy had gone into even getting the works that are in the show amassed in the museum. Of course, Africa Fashion necessitated energy to come to fruition as well, but the resources allotment seems different, the work of a dedicated Senior Curator of African and Diaspora Textiles and Fashion (Dr. Christine Checinska) and a “Project Curator” (Elisabeth Murray). Abioto had support from the museum, but much of the work wasn’t of a kind that museum staff could necessarily assist, it was embodied research, and only by living could Abioto engage in it.
gallery wall view of six portraits by artist Ray Eaglin
Ray Eaglin’s work installed as part of Black Artists of Oregon at the Portland Art Museum. Photo courtesy of exhibition participating artist Jason Hill and the Portland Art Museum.
For example, in the audio guide, Abioto explains that she bought one of the works by Ray Eaglin on eBay. Abioto first learned of Eaglin as an artist in conversation with Bobby Fouther as part of her earlier research attached to the Oregon Humanities grant in 2019; she met Fouther soon after arriving in Portland in 2010. Recognizing the eBay find as Eaglin’s work took background knowledge, because while the eBay listing indicated Eaglin’s authorship of his work, the image pictured first was the front side of the canvas, and the work of another artist entirely. Eaglin’s work is on the backside of the canvas, inside the wooden stretches.
The audio guide recounts Eaglin’s daughter’s belief that although her father created close to a 1,000 works of art in his lifetime, the majority have been lost. Abioto follows up with the following statement: “To me, this is indicative of the history of displacement in Portland: When families and communities can’t settle, can’t stay where they are, when Black families are constantly moved and displaced, where are our works? Where are our things held?”
Tracing where things were, who the artists are and were, and even who to ask for the next lead, necessitated an embodiment that is unlike art historical research as I know it in the traditional sense. Abioto couldn’t just search the Portland Art Museum collections, or go to the library, or sift through archives: The information she was after was very conspicuously absent from those places. Instead, gathering the information required being in the community and listening accordingly.
The research connections could only have been forged by Abioto. In the second episode of the Art Unbound podcast, Abioto describes how an artist named Thomas Unthank contacted her with information about Black arts groups from the 1980s, including the Black Artists Guild and the Members Gallery, after finding her through the Oregon Humanities article. Unthank gave Abioto documents and even slides from shows.
In those slides, Abioto saw and was captivated by Nick Jones’ textile works. She was able to find many of the artists on the lists, with the exception of Nick Jones. Later, though, she was explaining to the activist and photographer Richard Brown about how she couldn’t find Jones, and Brown was able to connect her to Jones – which, after all that, was only a phone number and not the work of getting to know Jones and his fascinating story, which weaves together fiber art, the NBA, and a cooking show, among other things: The podcast episode is truly fascinating.
