Staller Center's Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery Announces New Historic Exhibition of Black Abstract Artists and Celebration of Howardena Pindell
Revisiting 5+1 features work by the six artists in the 1969 exhibition (curated by and including artist Frank Bowling) each of whom created vivid experimental abstract paintings and sculptures. Alongside Bowling, the show presents major work by Melvin Edwards, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, and William T. Williams, showcasing their early practices of the 1960s and ‘70s. In collaboration with Distinguished Professor of Art Howardena Pindell, Revisiting 5+1 adds a related yet distinct group of six Black women artists, who were also trailblazers in abstraction. Alongside Pindell, the exhibition features works by Vivian Browne, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Betye Saar, Alma Thomas, and Mildred Thompson, including a never before shown 1971 film by Saar.
Photographs of the 1969 exhibition by Adger Cowans and Tina Tranter and original archival research present new findings on 5+1, while university records and photographs provide contextual history of the concurrent Black Student Movement taking place on campus. The 1969 exhibition coincided with the first semester of courses in a new Black Studies Program, created in response to student activism.
