African art, Black creativity take spotlight in museum exhibits

Although Black History Month is commemorated in February, museums and galleries on Long Island are presenting works by Black artists that create impressions to last a lifetime. Whether locally produced or from afar, every picture tells a story that can enrich us all.

A RICH AFRICAN ‘TAPESTRY’

The Museum of Contemporary Art Long Island has woven "A Tapestry of Contemporary African Art," featuring paintings, photographs, sculptures and multimedia works in which 12 artists from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Tunisia, and South Africa give visual expression to their thoughts on everyday experiences, global realities, and the complexities of life, itself.

Co-curated by Patchogue's John Cino, senior curator of MoCA L.I., along with independent curator, Laura Day Webb, the director of High Line Nine Galleries in New York, the tight, small collection on loan from Manhattan’s Montague Contemporary gallery fills the museum with color and energy. It also connects the viewer to artists half a world away through labels that offer glimpses into their lives and themes.

The show started as an idea — continuing a series focused on geographic regions — and took shape when Cino encountered one powerful work he knew he wanted to exhibit: Angèle Etoundi Essamba's "A-Fil-Iation 3." The large, richly toned photograph depicts a woman with skeins of indigo thread wound around her head. Cino was roped in by the image. Essamba has stated that thread functions for her as a metaphor — it entangles, but it also connects. Day Webb explained that the Cameroon-born artist based the photograph on the Greek myth of Athena and Arachne, two women weavers of great skill.

"The interconnectivity of the world, the threads that we hold as women and colors evocative of different emotions, this is what makes her work so different," she said, adding, "They're radiating this quality of strength and beauty."

For Cino, the most surprising thing about the show is how, regardless of their influences — African politics, pop culture, jazz — all the works seem familiar and relatable. "These shows present other parts of the world as just like us — people who have the same kind of hopes, the same kind of desires,” he said. “When we think about the world as being filled with the other, we miss the point that we're all human."

CELEBRATING ‘BLACK CREATIVITY’

“55 years of Black Creativity” is being celebrated by Westbury Arts in association with the Long Island Black Artist Association and the New York State Council on the Arts. Here, you'll find works by Mary Rano, Olita Wingate, Galvin Bisserup Jr., James Whitten, Aaron Scott, Clemente Ettrick, Marcia Odle McNair, Frenal Mezilas, Kenneth Bradford, David Wilson, Willie Mack, and ex-president and current matriarch of the group, Maxine Townsend-Broderick.

"The Long Island Black Artists Association was established in 1968," Townsend-Broderick explained. "I met them when I lived in Hempstead, and I joined them around 1970 or '71." The group, now counting about a dozen members, meets regularly to discuss each others' work and plan exhibitions. "It's always been our main thing to support one another," she said. "Back in the '60s and '70s, it was very difficult for Black artists to exhibit their work."

Townsend-Broderick's five decades in the organization included her working years as a photographer, teacher and commercial artist. She’s retired, but her work hasn't slowed down. In fact, she's added painting, quilting and stained glass to her list of accomplishments and had works acquired by international museums.

The LIBAA encourages students, young artists and amateurs to join. Its history boasts major figures like Romare Bearden and Emmett Wigglesworth. But whether viewing Freeport photographer Bisserup's complex digital artworks, Odle-McNair's colorful abstractions or Townsend-Broderick's portraits of students at work, the point is to get to know the work of these local artists.

"What I hope when people look at these works is that they see us," said Townsend-Broderick. "Our skin may be a different color, but we're no different than anybody else. See us as people. See us as human. Accept us for who we are. We've done so much for this country."