"Spirit in the Dark" opens Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, November 22, 2024


"Spirit in the Dark" opens Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.



WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture opened its latest exhibition, “Spirit in the Dark: Religion in Black Music, Activism, and Popular Culture,” Nov. 18. Through never-before-seen objects from the museum’s permanent collection, alongside rare photographs and stories featured in Ebony and Jet magazines, the exhibition explores ways in which religion is a part of the cultural fabric of the African American experience. “Spirit in the Dark” is on view in the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts (CAAMA) gallery until November 2023. 

The exhibition includes photographs of several prominent African Americans, such as Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Reverend Ike and Jesse Jackson, examining religion’s impact on their lives and the larger Black community. Photographs featured in the exhibition are taken from the recently acquired Johnson Publishing Company archive, which is jointly owned by the museum and the Getty Research Institute. “Spirit in the Dark” showcases 37 framed photographs from the JPC archive and approximately 25 objects from the museum’s collection.

“The role of the Black press has always been pivotal in amplifying African American social and religious life,” said Eric Lewis Williams, museum curator of religion. “Ebony and Jet captured and granted rare insight into the lives of influential Black figures, often revealing how religion has inspired, undergirded, and animated the work of Black artists, activists and changemakers. Through these photographs, objects and the larger stories they represent, we are able to highlight the tremendous diversity within the Black religious experience and bear witness to the role of religion in the Black struggle for human dignity and social equality.” 

The exhibition spotlights the presence of religion in African American popular culture through three sections, providing a visual exploration of religion’s shadow in both the sacred and secular through images and artifacts. Each section examines the juxtaposition of various diverse aspects of religion and its space in African American life:

• Blurred Lines: Holy | Profane: This section explores how African American musicians and vocalists blur and transgress the boundaries between the holy and the profane. Artists often transport the power of Black sacred music—historically performed in places of worship—into secular or profane spheres, often fusing modalities and moving back and forth between genres. 




• Bearing Witness: Protest | Praise: The second section looks at Black religious leaders who dually ministered to the spiritual needs of their people and led as activists in seasons of social protest. Bearing witness to wrongs and lighting the pathway to freedom, these individuals embodied both priestly and prophetic functions in their contributions to leadership in the struggle for Black liberation.

• Lived Realities: Suffering | Hope: The final section journeys through the creative social and political endeavors of Black artists and activists. They have deployed their faith, talents, and moral visions to expose the harsh realities of the suffering and trauma of Black people in America. These same individuals offered bold visions of Black flourishing and hope, emboldening the oppressed in their fight for justice and social equality. 

Visitors also will be able to listen to the sounds of the exhibition with a curated playlist of music by artists included in “Spirit in the Dark” and experience the exhibition virtually with a special companion digital exhibition on the Searchable Museum website.

The Johnson Publishing Company archive

In 2019, a consortium of five nonprofit organizations, including the Ford Foundation, the Getty Trust, the MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution, purchased and preserved the JPC archive, which includes more than 4 million prints, negatives, slides, and other photographic formats, as well as 10,000 audiovisual items. The archive is jointly owned by the museum and the Getty Research Institute, which are working together to preserve, catalog and digitize these materials so they can be shared and studied for generations to come. 

The archival pigment prints in this exhibition were made in 2022 from the digital files of a legacy collection including 2,800 of the most iconic JPC images, which were digitized between 2007 and 2012 from original prints, slides, negatives, contact sheets, and oversized formats.










Today's News

November 21, 2022

Vallarino

Regen Projects is currently presenting works by German artist Daniel Richter

15 Cycladic antiquities of unique archaeological value are presented for the first time

'Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle Of Thread And Rope ' opens at Tate Modern

National Museum of American History adds key blues archive

The Baltimore Museum of Art opens exhibition of works by five recent Baker Artist awardees

"On the Horizon: Art and Atmosphere in the 19th century" opens at the Clark Art Institute

Exhibition brings together a selection of rare and unique pieces sourced exclusively in Brazil by Jorge Zalszupin

MCA Chicago opens its new exhibition 'Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s-Today'

Martin Gropius Bau opens an exhibition of works by Wu Tsang

Sargent's Daughters opens the debut New York solo exhibition of artist Rema Ghuloum

Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art now to participate in the Collections Assessment for Preservation program

Contemporary Native American art exhibition opens at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art

"Gentle Pulse" by artist Karen Black to be final show of 2022 at Sullivan+Strumpf

"Tant Zhong: A Kitchen Blessing" ongoing exhibition at Linseed

The countdown begins to Roundhouse's new creative centre

"The Deviant" on view at the Galeria Jaqueline Martins, works by Regina Parra

George Lois, visionary art director, is dead at 91

A Broadway star celebrates a different kind of opening night

Exhibition of sculpture by American artist Ann Gillen opens at Polina Berlin Gallery

Rowan University's dynamic new photography exhibition debuts

"Spirit in the Dark" opens Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Under the Influence: Artists & Their Vices

Van Gogh Protestors Found Guilty




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful