‘Emancipation’ at Newcomb Art Museum celebrates proclamation’s 160th anniversary
28th August 2023 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
An ongoing exhibition at Tulane University’s Newcomb Art Museum is celebrating and exploring the impact and legacy of the Emancipation Proclamation, for that landmark document’s 160th anniversary.
The exhibit, titled “Emanci-pation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation,” also looks at the Proclamation’s relevance today and how its promise first espoused when it was issued in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln.
“Emancipation” features newly commissioned and recent works by seven living Black artists – Sadie Barnette, Alfred Conteh, Maya Freelon, Hugh Hayden, Letitia Huckaby, Jeffrey Meris and Sable Elyse Smith – who were invited to create their own works as responses to “The Freedman,” an influential bronze sculpture by John Quincy Adams Ward, who created the piece in 1863 around the time Lincoln was crafting the Emancipation Proclamation.
“The Freedman,” which is owned by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, is often seen as a commentary by Ward on slavery. The sculpture depicts a Black man who has broken the manacles that represent enslavement. When the sculpture was completed, it represented what was then a new view of people of color but presenting a person of color who is heroic and empowered, not powerless and subjugated.
Because the inspiration for the exhibit – “The Freedman” – is in the collections of the Amon Carter Mu-seum, the exhibit was first on display there before traveling to New Orleans.
Dr. Maurita N. Poole, director of the New-comb Art Museum, said she and Amon Carter Museum curator Margaret Adler have worked on putting together the show about the Emancipation Proclamation for several years, and eventually Poole decided the project could become an excellent fall exhibition for Newcomb.
“I decided the show would be a good fit for the museum because of its mission to present original shows that encourage civic dialogue and community transformation,” Poole said. “The works in the exhibition are thought-provoking, original and beautifully constructed pieces that give people the opportunity to connect a key moment in American history to contemporary times.”
She added that the artists “also render visible the significance of the ideas of freedom and citizenship, which are foundational to the development of the United States.”
Poole said that, as a foundational statement on freedom and democratic thought, the Emancipation Proclamation offers a rich source of historical and sociological philosophies that have influenced and defined American society, especially beginning with the Civil War and emancipation.
“The subject makes it significant but the reason the exhibition is at Newcomb is because it originates with a bronze statue of a Black person in the United States freeing himself from slavery,” she said. “This historic work, which was created in 1863, is then given new life by seven of today’s leading artists responding to it.”
“Emancipation” is on display at the Newcomb Art Museum on the Tulane University campus until Dec. 8, with an opening reception on Sept. 7. Poole said she and the other staffers and officials at Newcomb are hoping that people in the community will find the exhibition compelling.
She said the museum is hosting other events as part of the outreach for “Emancipation,” including programs highlighting the artists – such as Hayden in September and Huckaby in November – who participated in making the exhibit a reality. In addition, the museum is offering walking tours with activist and artist Shana M. Griffin in October, as well as a youth art pop-up in December. A closing program Dec. 2 will conclude the string of events.
In addition, the exhibition will also include a companion book that will feature Q&As with the artists who participated in the project, as well as essays by several renowned scholars.
Huckaby, one of the artists whose work is in the exhibition, said she is honored to be a part of “Emancipation,” adding that she’s “always delighted to have my work exhibited [at Newcomb].”
Huckaby said her work is “an exploration of my African-American heritage,” a creative process that resulted in two of her works being displayed at Newcomb. One of the pieces is a memorial to the victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Oklahoma, titled “A Tale of Two Greenwoods,” while the other work, titled “Bitter Waters Sweet,” “explores the legacy of Africatown, a historic community near Mobile, Ala., that was founded by a group of West African people who were trafficked as slaves to the United States,” she said.
This article originally published in the August 28, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
