{"id":9412,"date":"2018-11-27T18:29:05","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T23:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=9412"},"modified":"2018-11-27T18:29:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T23:29:05","slug":"nine-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2018\/11\/27\/nine-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What Does Winning Look Like?\u2019\u2014Cooper Gallery\u2019s Riveting Look At Blackness During Trump, #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near the start of \u201cNine Moments for Now,\u201d<\/a> the riveting exhibition at the Cooper Gallery at Harvard University\u2019s Hutchins Center in Cambridge through Jan. 21, is a hall of black and white photos of the dead.<\/p>\n

The images depict funerals of assassinated civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers in the 1960s and funerals for African Americans killed by police in recent years: Sandra Bland, Michael Brown (\u201cground zero for what we now know as Black Lives Matter,\u201d curator Dell Marie Hamilton says), Freddy Gray. Boston photographer Craig Bailey offers \u201cFaces of the AIDS Crisis,\u201d portraits of local activists in the 1990s who have since died from HIV or AIDS, Hamilton says. And Carrie Mae Weems\u2019s 2008 photos from her \u201cConstructing History Series\u201d are pietas reimaging the deaths of Evers, King, Malcolm X. It is a halting, haunting place to begin\u2014invocations of the African American community\u2019s monumental losses.<\/p>\n

\""Nine<\/a>
“Nine Moments from Now” at Cooper Gallery. From left: Shawn Hubbard, “Grandmother of Freddie Gray, Funeral of Freddie Gray,” April 27, 2015; William Carmago, “The Mourning of Sandra Bland,” July 25, 2015; photographer unknown, “Myrlie Evers attending the funeral of the slain civil rights leaders, Medgar Evers,” June 15, 1963. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNine Moments for Now\u201d seems in part to be about how a people reckon with such losses. Hamilton says she included the AIDS portraits to consider \u201cartists and activists and public figures working on the ground and how did they get through the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the wake of #BlackLivesMatter and #TimesUp, we hope that this exhibition enables all of us to slow down long enough to remember that democracy, time and memory are as poetic, unruly and fragile as body and breath,\u201d Hamilton, a Boston artist, writes in the exhibition booklet. She\u2019ll lead tours of the show on Dec. 20<\/a> and Jan. 11<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Craig<\/a>
Craig Bailey’s “Faces of the AIDS Crisis” photos 1991-1997.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Matthew<\/a>
Matthew Gonzalez, bronze bust of President Barack Obama. (Melissa Blackall, Courtesy of the Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art at Harvard University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The exhibition begins with mourning then highlights heroes, family history, legacies, traditions and activism. At the end of that first hall of photos is a bronze bust of Barack Obama by Matthew Gonzalez that seems to contemplate all the death. Hamilton says the statue is \u201cthere as a sentry, reminding us we\u2019re on the precipice, we can\u2019t be complacent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photographer<\/a>
Photographer unknown, “Martin Luther King, guest preacher visiting Memorial Church, Harvard University,” January 1965.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Obama is part of a section of heroes\u2014W.E.B. Dubois\u2019s Harvard student photo from 1890 (\u201cbefore they were giants,\u201d Hamilton says); Carl Van Vechten photos of stars of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s and \u201840s (James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, Richard Wright, Alain Locke), Martin Luther King photographed during a 1965 visit to Harvard; a 1977 photo of writers Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and June Jordan from Jordan\u2019s archive.<\/p>\n

\""Nine<\/a>
“Nine Moments from Now” at Cooper Gallery. From left: Marlon Forrester, “BlackSunsetComing,” 2018; Wu Min, “US Imperialism Get Out of Africa!,” 1964; Zhan Jianjin, “For Indepedence and Freedom,” 1962.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next are posters\u2014Shepard Fairey\u2019s iconic graphics of Obama from the 2008 presidential campaign; screenprints from 1969 by Corita Kent (after she\u2019d left Los Angeles for Boston) about black poverty, Cesar Chavez, and mourning the death of Martin Luther King; vintage posters promoting the Chicago black artists collective AfriCobra and calling for a black studies program at Harvard. There are Chinese propaganda posters from the early 1960s saying \u201cUS Imperialism Get Out of Africa\u201d and \u201cFor Independence and Freedom,\u201d as well as reproductions of posters from the 2016 Women\u2019s March.<\/p>\n

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons\u2019s installation of spears, African and Chinese stools, and blocks of sugar reference the African diaspora that has labored in the sugar plantations of her native Cuba. Tony Gleaton photographs African-descended people in Central America. \u201cI want to open up the notion of blackness and how it is constructed,\u201d Hamilton says. \u201cIt\u2019s constantly in motion, it\u2019s constantly being reconfigured.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ekua<\/a>
Ekua Holmes, “Idyll of the South: Root of Jesse,” 2016 (left), and “Idyll of the South: Portrait of Aunt Mary,” 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNine Moments for Now\u201d showcases many Boston-area artists: Steve Locke\u2019s \u201cAuction Block\u201d abstract paintings based on the shape of the locus of slave sales; Ekua Holmes\u2019 shrines to family members; L\u2019Merchie Frazier\u2019s textiles honoring 19th century Boston activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Black Panther Ericka Huggins; Joy Buolamwini\u2019s \u201cAI, Ain\u2019t I a Woman,\u201d a digital piece interrogating racism built into artificial \u201cintelligence\u201d programs. Other local folks in the show include Alexandra Smith, who teaches at Wellesley College; Elisa Hamilton; Evelyn Rydz; Marlon Forester; Chanel Thervil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does winning look like?\u201d Hamilton asks in the show\u2019s brochure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show is simply a proposition. It\u2019s different ways of being an activist, different ways of being a citizen. It\u2019s also about we\u2019re in this thing, this project of America, we\u2019re in this together,\u201d Hamilton says. \u201cThere are ways each of us individually can make an impact. \u2026 We can\u2019t rely on Washington to save us. It\u2019s really about each of us individually and our own agency, what we can do in the here and now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Chanel<\/a>
Chanel Thervil, “Pity Party: Selfies at the Start of the Trump Era,” 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"L'Marchie<\/a>
L’Marchie Frazier, “Frances Ellen Watkins Harper,” 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Near the start of \u201cNine Moments for Now,\u201d the riveting exhibition at the Cooper Gallery at Harvard University\u2019s Hutchins Center in Cambridge through Jan. 21, is a hall of black and white photos of the dead. The images depict funerals of assassinated civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[264,42,483,68,484,87],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9412"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9430,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9412\/revisions\/9430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}