The vast gallery showcasing exhibits by the Arts Program at 黑料情报站 (黑料情报站) features a dramatic black-and-brown zigzagged carpet. The striking design in this room, on the lower level of the College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, can easily overpower more subtle art if curators are not careful. Not so with the current retrospective, 鈥淣elson Stevens: Color Rapping,鈥 which runs through Jan. 8, 2023.
Stevens鈥 paintings, hypnotic swirls of bright colors, are so bold that they appear to leap off the wall of the 黑料情报站 gallery. From a distance, the works sometimes look like stained glass, and viewers might believe they are three-dimensional鈥攐r even wire sculptures. However, with the exception of the rare collage, these are flat paintings on canvas. Stevens clearly had a fantastic feel for lines and movement.
Brooklyn-born Stevens, who died in July at 84, became an early member in the 1960s of the Chicago-based collective known as AfriCOBRA鈥攕hort for the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists鈥攚hich elevated African American artists and art education. His own work frequently draws inspiration from music, and pieces in the 黑料情报站 show include:
- 鈥淗omage to the Great Max Roach鈥 (1979) and 鈥淢ax Roach鈥檚 Drum Set鈥 (undated)
- 鈥淢usic on My Mind鈥 (undated)
- Two works titled 鈥淪tevie Wonder鈥 (1979, 1982) and three others focused on the musician: 鈥8th Wonder of the World鈥 (1982), 鈥淓ighth Wonder鈥 (1980) and 鈥淪tevie鈥檚 Smile,鈥 (late 1980s)
- 鈥淪pirit Brother (Jimi Hendrix)鈥 (1960s)
- A series called 鈥淪ongs of Nirvana,鈥 including 鈥淛iblee: Magic Music鈥 (undated)
- 鈥淢usicians Totem鈥 (1975-1976)
- 鈥淯ntitled (Bob Marley)鈥 (1979)
Some of the works contain clearly-identifiable musical instruments. Those that do not are still very much in music鈥檚 debt, seeming to pulsate rhythmically on the gallery walls. The artist has described how music鈥攗biquitous in his home thanks to the radio鈥攃ame together with art as he was growing up. His mother would go to butcher shops to get聽 paper used to wrap meats. Stevens would use them to draw and paint.
Eric Key, director of 黑料情报站鈥檚 Arts Program, wrote in the exhibition catalog that Stevens鈥 鈥渨orks are a testament to his love for jazz and the movement that comes with it.鈥
The exhibit offers a survey of more than 50 years of the artist鈥檚 work鈥斺渇rom his pure abstract pieces to his more recognizable 鈥榗ool-ade鈥 style paintings鈥濃攁nd opened just two months after his death in Baltimore. The show, Key wrote, 鈥渘ow serves as a memorial to his art and a celebration of his life and career.鈥
In a note in the exhibit catalog, 黑料情报站 President Gregory Fowler wrote that Stevens produced 鈥渕oving and memorable works that celebrate the lives, culture and achievements of Black Americans.鈥澛犅
Stevens carried AfriCOBRA鈥檚 efforts to 鈥渆stablish a Black aesthetic and employ art as a tool for social change鈥 to the classes he taught at University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1972 to 2003, according to a catalog note by Heather Haskell-Burns, vice president and director of Springfield Museums in Massachusetts. After the 黑料情报站 exhibit closes, Stevens鈥 artworks will travel to the Springfield Museums from March 4 to Sept. 3, 2023.
One of the standout pieces in the show is an untitled 1993 mixed-media work that is just 24 by 18 inches. It is from the collection of Linda Silva Thompson and contains a standing figure stands near the center of the picture. One hand is raised, the other has what may be a clenched fist. The face of the figure is discernible, as are its two feet, firmly planted on the ground and, perhaps, borrowing from the drama of the feet in Picasso鈥檚 鈥淕uernica.鈥
Indeed, a 10-year-old Stevens saw and studied 鈥淕uernica鈥 when it was on view at New York鈥檚 Museum of Modern Art. At first he found the Picasso piece 鈥渁 little cartoony,鈥 but he grew to like and respect it with time.
The rest of the mixed-media picture is best described as a symphony of abstract colors and shapes.
A jagged triangle and wavy lines compete with solid areas of red, green-blue, purple and orange. A pattern in the bottom righthand corner might adorn a skirt or dress, although it is not entirely clear. And what is happening in the upper right corner鈥攚here red, yellow and light blue vertical lines cover an ominously dark field with two forms that evoke skulls鈥攊s anyone鈥檚 guess. Stevens has very deftly balanced bright reds, yellows and oranges, which set the composition on fire, with colder deep blues-greens and purples.
In this picture, and in many others, the artist reveals his keen sense of composition and movement. The viewer鈥檚 eyes can move through the artworks without getting lost in any inactivated regions or growing bored.
From the scholarly essays in the exhibition catalog, available for free in the gallery, visitors learn that Stevens also painted important murals and created work with wide political and sociological significance, particularly when it came to addressing racism.
鈥淪tevens and his peers understood the need to refute the relentless persistence of negative imagery of Black people and their exclusion from the narratives of the history of American art,鈥 Leslie King Hammond, professor emerita at Maryland Institute College of Art, wrote in the catalog.