WASHINGTON, DC.- In an exhibition beginning October 8,
The Phillips Collection presents the artwork of American contemporary artist Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959). An internationally recognized leader in contemporary art, Lovell is best known for his powerful juxtaposition of found objects and drawn figures that explore issues of identity, memory, and our collective American past. The exhibition of more than 40 works—including three from the Phillips’s own permanent collection—provides an in-depth study of Lovell’s deeply resonant series known as Kin. It also situates the Kin Series within the context of Lovell’s creative practice by bringing it together with a selection of his intricately crafted tableaux and installations.
Started in 2008 and now numbering 60 works, Lovell’s Kin serve as powerful eulogies to the lives of everyday African Americans from the time of Emancipation to the Civil Rights period. In his exquisitely crafted works, Lovell combines a freely-drawn Conté crayon face inspired by ID photos, passports, or mugshots with vernacular time-worn objects such as a brooch, clock, shoe, or mirror. Lovell’s poetic combinations of individualized charcoal faces with a personal object invest each of his works with multi-layered meanings. Through the potency of their juxtapositions and the symbolism of his visual language, Lovell’s Kin allow the viewer to contemplate the “markings that the past has made—and continues to make—on who we are.”
“Whitfield Lovell is extraordinarily gifted at shedding light on the reverberations of the past in our present lives,” said Director Dorothy Kosinski. “I am thrilled that the Phillips has the opportunity to share a remarkable collection of works from this talented artist. Lovell mines the extraordinary depth of human experience to reveal the common bonds that transcend racial, gender, cultural, or religious difference.” “In the subtlety of his poetic combinations and the restraint of his formal means, Lovell honors the contributions of those who came before us,” said Curator Elsa Smithgall. “His poignant–if not at times startling–combinations of object and image transport the viewer from past to present and reveal underlying truths about the human spirit.”
Whitfield Lovell: The Kin Series and Related Works will be on view at the Phillips October 8, 2016– January 8, 2017.
Whitfield Lovell was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. He received his BFA from Cooper Union School of Art, New York, and later studied at the New York University Graduate Program, Venice, Italy, and on an Eastman Scholarship at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He is the recipient of numerous artist fellowships and awards, including the National Award for Excellence (2014), the Malvina Hoffman Artists Fund Prize (2009), and the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2007). His work has been featured in numerous critically acclaimed monographic exhibitions, including Whitfield Lovell: Deep River (2013) and Visitation: The Richmond Project (2001– 2004).
Lovell’s artworks are held in private collections and major museums across the country, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
