Storytelling in “American Perspectives”
Ramey Mize, Assistant Curator of American Art Ramey Mize talks with Hayley Barton, Marketing Manager, to reflect on American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection.
Jean-Marcel St. Jacques (born 1972), Mother Sister May Have Sat in That Chair When She Lived in This House Before Me, 2014, wood, nails, and antique hardware on a plywood backing, 84 x 96 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York, Gift of Jean-Marcel St. Jacques, LLC, 2014.18.2
David Drake (c. 1800–c. 1870), Lewis J. Miles, Stony Bluff Plantation Pottery, Jug, 1853, alkaline-glazed stoneware, 14 1/2 x 12 x 11 1/2 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York. Gift of Sally and Paul Hawkins, 1999.18.1. Photo by John Parnell.
AS THIS EXHIBITION COMES TO A CLOSE, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW IT CAME TO BE AT THE PMA?
American Perspectives features over 70 works of folk and selftaught art from the American Folk Art Museum in New York from their permanent collection. It offers wonderful broad-ranging insight into the very diverse landscape of visual and material culture in the United States from the 18th century to the present day. It covers a large swath of time, and it also offers a great crosssection of media. It has four primary sections that are organized under the titles, “Founders,” “Travelers,” “Philosophers,” and “Seekers,” which explore the roles, thoughts, and experiences of artists from diverse backgrounds, identities, and perspectives, all of whom speak to the unfolding story of this country. The focus resonates with the PMA’s historic emphasis on craft decorative arts and material culture. It has nice connections to the PMA’s Haystack (In the Vanguard: Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, 1950-1969) show from 2019 around definitions of craft that we can expand to discussions around self-taught art. I think what's exciting is how the installation frames folk and self-taught art as a witness to history and a carrier of cultural heritage. American Perspectives doesn’t shy away from the way in which art is embedded and entangled with this country's complex past.
WHAT DOES THE TERM “FOLK ART” MEAN?
Folk art can be difficult to define because it applies to so many things. Why do we feel the need to distinguish between “folk” and “fine art” in the first place? It speaks to biased hierarchies in the history of art. In many ways, folk art has been defined as “amateur” rather than professional, emerging from an “outsider” perspective rather than one that is vetted and widely known. Just because [folk art] wasn't an academic form of art doesn't mean that it doesn't contain great knowledge and learning.
Clementine Hunter (1886/1887–1988), Playing Cards, 1970, oil on canvas board, 18 x 24 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York. Gift of Mildred Hart Bailey/Clementine Hunter Art Trust, 1996.1.2. Photo by Gavin Ashworth.
CAN YOU OUTLINE THE FOUR SECTIONS OF THE EXHIBITION?
What I love about the show is that it's not trying to perform any kind of march through time or progress-driven chronology. Each section looks across past and present, embracing multiple media, from a thematic perspective. So, you have contemporary makers or 20th-century makers in conversation with artists from as early as the 1700s. The themes reflect the thesis of the show: everyone has a story to tell. You're offering stories through different vehicles, different creative platforms, and vastly different perspectives and life experiences. There’s this attempt to congregate artists along the lines of this sort of storytelling practice and identity—from the position of a seeker, a philosopher, a traveler, or a founder. For example, the “Founders” section is asking the question, who were the founders of the United States? This grouping of work looks to open up that term “founder” beyond the authors of the Declaration of Independence to a more inclusive understanding of it, such as the Indigenous and First Nations communities who have called this place home since time immemorial.
Jessie B. Telfair (1913–1986), Freedom Quilt, 1983, cotton, with pencil, 74 x 68 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York. Gift of Judith Alexander in loving memory of her sister, Rebecca Alexander, 2004.9.1. Photo by Gavin Ashworth.
HOW IS THE THEME OF STORYTELLING PRESENT THROUGHOUT THE SHOW?
For each work, the labels honor this story aspect. They are a little longer than we would typically include, but it’s because there's an effort to offer a fuller story behind each object. That individual story concept and how these works of art carry the stories forward, I think, is reflected beautifully in the presentation. You can go down a little rabbit hole with each work and really fall in love with each object because you get this dimensional understanding of it. There's also a lot of personality in the show, which brings together objects that are connected to unique visions and often produced by someone who has charted their artistic career outside of the more formal fine art landscape. So, there is an individuality that’s palpable in each work. I think that could be a nice way to think about this show too, that there is this great authorship and individuality reflected in each work of art on view. A special quilt in the exhibition is a quilt by African American artist Jessie B. Telfair titled Freedom Quilt from 1983. Telfair was a cafeteria worker in Georgia and early in the civil rights movement, she was fired from her job there for registering to vote. In the years following that traumatic event, she created this quilt that has this incredibly striking graphic treatment of the word “freedom.” It is an emblem of the spirit of this show. It contains all of those things at once: a unique vision of lived experience, resilience, resistance, and a personal call to action.
This Exhibition has been organized by the American Folk Art Museum, New York, with support provided by Art Bridges
Originally curated for installation at the American Folk Art Museum, February 11, 2020 – January 3, 2021, by Stacy C. Hollander, Independent Curator. Tour coordinated by Emelie Gevalt, Curator of Folk Art, the American Folk Art Museum.
