Emerging Black Artists On View in Harlem

What better place to take the pulse of contemporary African-American art than Harlem?

The current exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, titled "Frequency," does just that. The show features 35 artists between the ages of 25 and 46, from across the United States. Its title (with an intentional pun) refers both to recurring situations and to sounds, whether they accompany the art or are merely suggested. Diversity, rather than any one unifying impulse, drives the exhibit. Thus it achieves the stated goal of the curators: to provide a snapshot of emerging black artists of 2005.

Among the varied works in the current exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem are Robert Pruitt's CEO Portrait (Talented 10th Series), 2004. (Photo courtesy Collection of David Alan Grier, Los Angeles, Calif.)

This very animated "snapshot" comprises a preponderance of collage, multimedia, and digital prints. Things are (more often than not) fragmented into grids, separate pieces, and non-traditional forms. Race and ethnicity, while not always the subject, often inform the artworks. Reverberations from black history, literature, and such diverse, creative minds as Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, August Wilson, and hip-hop artist Mos Def lie behind many of the pieces.

Take, for example, Jefferson Pinder's (b. 1970, Washington, D.C.) Invisible Man (2005). In this five-minute video, clearly based on Ralph Ellison's images in his novel of the same name, a carefully dressed black man stands among electric light bulbs of varying sizes and types. At first he is nearly invisible, blending into the blackness, but then the bulbs light up one at a time, revealing him to the viewer. Soon, however, there is too much light, obliterating the man's image in its glare. Finally the lights go out again, leaving him once more in the dark. Is it a case of "damned if you do, and damned if you don't?"

Another Pinder video (co-produced with Jeff Stein), called Carwash Meditations, silhouettes a black man in profile in a car, listening to loud, angry rap music, while beautiful, abstract colors and patterns (reminiscent of abstract expressionist painter Morris Louis) swirl around, presumably cleaning his car.

Jeff Sonhouse (b. 1968, New York City) glues bright orange and black matches onto wood, aligning them to make up the hair of the man in his Bearden-influenced collage, called Inauguration of the Solicitor (2005). For the rest of the diptych, the artist employs oil and other mixed media. Tribal tattoo and decoration appear to be incongruously encased in a suit and tie. But even the suit has bright green stripes, and the red of the shirt clashes with the orangey-black hair. The composition led me to wonder if the man was on fire underneath his mask. Then I read that, in some earlier shows, the artist actually set the matches on fire at the opening.

Xaveira Simmons's High Seasoned Brown, 2004. (Photo courtesy of Xaveira Simmons)

A second Sonhouse mixed-media portrait titled Exhibit A: Cardinal Francis Arinze (2005) is made of oil paint, cowrie shells, matches, and pumice gel. The subject of the portrait is, of course, the Nigerian cardinal many speculated would be the successor to Pope John Paul II; he would have been the first African pope. The work is appropriately big and imposing. Its wonderful composition also features the artist's signature matches, but now arranged in the cardinal's hat. The three-dimensional black beads and crucifix that dangle from his neck made me think of Chris Ofili and the scandal of his Madonna that included (discreet) pieces of elephant dung on the surface.

I also loved Shinique Amie Smith's (b. 1968, N.Y.C.) three-dimensional Bale Variant No. 006 (2005). Large (at 72 inches) and colorful, it consists of actual discarded clothing—funny T-shirts, jeans, blanket fragments—literally tied together into a bale. It evokes both memories of hard work (laundry), the poverty of hand-me-downs, and bales of cotton, reminiscent of slavery.

Nick Cave (b. 1959, Jefferson City, Mo.; now in Chicago) created three Sound Suits (2005). All three are constructed of a metal armature and mannequins, covered with found, beaded-and-sequined garments. Lined up, standing in the large room, they command attention. Something is scary about them; my first impression was that of hooded Ku Klux Klan figures. Their heads are entirely covered up; in fact, they have no heads. But instead of white sheets, they are covered with colorful garments and jewels, perhaps reflecting Caribbean festivals and African ritual.

Cave, a performance artist who studied dance with Alvin Ailey, describes the Sound Suits as ritualizing the isolation and insulation black people experience in America. Like Pinder and Sonhouse, he examines the problems of invisibility, disguise, oppression, and chameleon-like behavior endemic to marginalized peoples.

Shinique Smith's Bale Variant No. 0006, 2005. (Photo courtesy of Shinique Smith)

Mike Cloud's (b. 1974, Chicago; now in N.Y.C.) series of collages, Untitled (African Ceremonies: Volume I and II), take up a whole wall. They illustrate rituals by means of rearranged cut-out pieces from a book, originally made by a white woman photographer. Though the wall labels and checklist calls these Untitled, the artist has written directly on each of three of the collages the words "circumcision," "womanhood," and "funeral." In a way, Cloud has reclaimed the gaze of the original photographer, remaking the images into something at once new and old, illustrative but original. Previously, this artist had done similar manipulations to photographs by Diane Arbus.

There is not enough space in this brief article to explore the worlds of all the artists in the show. But the exhibit is characterized by variety, and work of interest on many levels.

The gallery devoted to films and videos includes some pretty nifty shorts, including Michael Paul Britto's irreverent action-trailer spoof, Dirrrty Harriet Tubman; Kalup Linzy's gay, campy, soap-opera satire, Conversations wit de Churen III: Da Young and Da Mess; and Shinique Amie Smith's autobiographical Letter to Johnny.

We can be sure that we will see and hear more of many of the artists in this show. This colorful, noisy, irreverent, funny, satirical, and serious exhibition continues at the Studio Museum in Harlem until March 12.

The Studio Museum in Harlem is at 144 West 125th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Lenox Avenue. Suggested donation is $7 for adults, $3 for students and seniors. Admission is free on the first Saturday of every month. Hours are Wednesday-Friday and Sunday, noon-6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. The museum is closed on Monday, Tuesday, and major holidays.

Art historian Greta Berman has been on the liberal arts faculty since 1979.