One of These Days
© Whitfield Lovell / courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York
Whitfield Lovell is a New York based African American artist who explores and documents the lives of black men and women, primarily in the rural South. One of Those Days is an inquiry into the nature of daily life of black Americans at the turn of the 20th century. Works like this one combine powerful drawing with found and salvaged objects that evoke domestic rituals and the customs of the time. Lovell returns to history and memory to inform his work, evidenced in the symbols and images he uses.
Exhibition Title: Collectors' Circle Exhibition
Label Date: 12/22/2015-02/14/2016
Type: Chat label
Lovell’s tableau-like One of These Days combines four distinct elements. First, he draws a realistic, life-sized portrait inspired by antique photographs of ordinary African Americans, some sourced from family albums and others found in archives or flea markets. Lovell renders the portrait directly onto foundwood wall boards that often retain traces of paint, wallpaper, holes, knots, or other signs of use or age. He then adds personal or household artifacts such as dishes, clothing, or other mementos—also collected from flea markets—on the panel itself, surrounding wall, or floor nearby the portrait. Finally, Lovell titles the work with a word or phrase that has many possible, and often contradictory, meanings. The net result encourages the viewer to imagine the pictured individual engaged in a rich, nuanced life, thus emphasizing the humanity of African Americans whose experiences, psychology, and collective memory have been overlooked or marginalized
Exhibition Title: Asheville Art Museum: An Introduction to the Collection
Label Date: 2021
Type: Catalogue Entry
Written by: Kristi McMillan
- Intersections in American Art , 9/11/2019 - 00/00/00
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