Faith Ringgold, Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, 1988. Acrylic paint, canvas, printed fabric, ink, and thread, 74 5/8” x 68 1/2”. Collection: Guggenheim Foundation, New York.
Maybe you recognize this narrative quilt by Faith Ringgold or are at least intrigued by its story-book character. It is actually part of a series that was turned into Tar Beach (1991) Ringgold’s semi-autobiographical illustrated children’s book exploring the wonderfully resilient and imaginative world of a young, girl named Cassie Louise Lightfoot growing up in Harlem during the 1930s. In this magical scene, Cassie is not only pictured on a blanket staring up at the sky from the tar-covered rooftop of her family’s apartment building but also a second time soaring high above the string of lights illuminating the George Washington Bridge in the background, evoking an empowering sense of freedom and limitless . The jazzy, colorful quilt, along with related sketches for Tar Beach, are are currently on display at the New Museum in New York in a terrific, comprehensive show entitled Faith Ringgold: American People, up until June 5.
Whether or not you are familiar with Ringgold’s “story quilts” (fascinating sewn and painted textiles bordered with or incorporating handwritten text) this installation will be a revelation, and serves to give the 91-year old New-York raised artist, educator, and activist more of the due she truly deserves. Since the end of the 1950s, Ringgold has been practicing (teaching, and protesting) at the intersection of contemporary art and human rights. Her multi-media oeuvre has raised provoking questions around the themes of art vs. craft, history-telling, and identity politics, frequently centering the social and economic inequity of women and African Americans, which the artist has explored in various styles and materials, as well as through performance and collaboration. While the figurative quilts, for which Ringgold is best known, are especially compelling - delightful, detail-filled, art-historically referential, humorous, at times jarring - (portraying fictionalized as well as historical figures from Josephine Baker and Pablo Picasso to Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman), Ringgold’s production is far more broad, complex, and experimental as evidenced in the show. In addition to dozens of individual and serial quilts, works on display include a slew of powerful, menacing oil paintings about segregation and racism in America/New York during the mid 1960s, Kuba-cloth inspired graphic protest posters and paintings, thankgas and other ritualistic hangings, and large-scale dolls and costumes for performances.
You will certainly leave “Faith Ringgold: American People” with a better understanding of this important artist, and you will likely gain insight into aspects of American society over the last six decades as well. If you want to get further context into the artist’s life, struggles, and accomplishments, pick up her memoir: We Flew Over the Bridge (1995, republished in 2005).