MFAH has three great exhibitions right now that are coming to a close. There is the blockbuster, showcasing the beloved and tragic Van Gogh. Then, Sally Mann with her mysterious photographs of the South, that evoke her home, heritage, and family. And the artist who has touched a chord with me is the most discreet, getting the least attention. He’s Jack Whitten.
I like underdogs. Explorers. And he certainly was one, as an African American growing up in Alabama, in American Apartheid as he called it. Through brilliance and grit, he broke away from the South and headed North. Not an easy feat in 1960. In NYC, he was the first black student at Cooper Union and at the same time melted into the bohemian art scene with the greats like De Kooning and Lawrence. He had discovered a new world and never moved back to the South. His journey even took him as far away as Crete, where he eventually spent his summers sculpting work we see here.
Walking through the exhibition, I am travelling to places not far away, to the harsh reality of the segregated South. But I’m also going to distant places, to traditions from Africa. He had said that his Jug Heads could protect a black person in a society that didn’t, and this tradition likely came from the enslaved peoples of Congo.
Installation view. Jack Whitten, Jug Head I and Jug Head II, 1965, black stained American elm with black shoe polish patina photograph by Hanneke Humphrey. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Embedded in elegant pieces, you will find a myriad of found objects that reference Nkissi power figures. But you’ll also be in the calm, azur waters of the Mediterranean, with the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus, fishing off the coast of Crete. What all do you see in this one?
Jack Whitten, Homage to the Kri-Kri, 1985, black mulberry, nails, and mixed media. ©Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy of the Jack Whitten Estate and Hauser & Wirth, and Museum of Fine Arts Houston
The discovery continues for me, with processes that he invented. He broke away from abstract expressionism, so emotionally heavy for him with the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War going on. Searching a new path, he started a lifelong focus on materiality. “Slab” paintings, sometimes called Richteresque, came out of that. But Whitten had invented the process earlier…. perhaps we should say Whittenesque.
Jack Whitten, Delta Group II, 1975 Photograph by Hanneke Humphrey. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston
His experimentations with acrylics were pioneering too. He would mold paint like plastic, make films out of it, freeze and then shatter it, and make tiles. From that came a series of abstract portraits that he called Monoliths, which are tributes to important African Americans. They pixelate with color and texture. Always interested in process and craft, he called these “Painting as Collage”.
Jack Whitten, Black Monolith VII (Du Bois Legacy: For W.E. Burghardt, 2014, acrylic on canvas, Private Collection; ©Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston
I walk through this exhibition in awe of such beauty, such breadth of work, but also of this man whom I would have loved to have known. His seemingly insatiable curiosity, his sensitivity, the intimacy of his work. He kept most of these pieces at home, not showing them to the public until late. The guardian figures, reliquary pieces, and totems must all have had special meanings for him, as they do for me now.
So why does his work seem to get the least attention? He was an engaging personality when you watch videos. The work is multi-layered and wonderful. I think the reason lies elsewhere. Maybe it’s exactly what I like about him, his outsider side.
Copyright © 2019 Hanneke Humphrey, All rights reserved.