Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties

This companion volume to the Brooklyn Museum's exhibition of the same name (March-July 2014) takes as its horizon observance of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Cocurators Carbone (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum) and Jones (art history, archaeology, Columbia Univ.) present four convincing essays that address aspects ranging from representational strategies of artists, the use of photography beyond simple reportage, the impact of this work on the art history canon, and the globally situated struggle for emancipation. Jones's deeply complex analysis cites numerous lushly illustrated works; her material, social, and political examination discusses the myriad ways African American artists, often segregated from the art world, articulated racial portraits of blackness as a means of accessing political authority. A variety of media are considered, including gestural and geometric abstraction, assemblage, minimalism, and pop imagery. An investigation of a diversity of artists, including African Americans and some of their white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and Caribbean contemporaries reveal the impact their work had on contemporary art production and criticism. Full-color illustrations of over 100 artworks are accompanied by a 30-page time line of events.