SCAD Museum of Art presents “The Art of Faith Ringgold: Story Quilts and Freedom Quests”

January 31 – April 15, 2011

SCAD Museum
227 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd
Savannah, GA 31401-4242
(912) 525-7191

http://www.scad.edu

The exhibition, “The Art of Faith Ringgold,” will feature 60 pieces from across four decades, including a number of Ringgold’s most recent works directly from her New York gallery that will be on view in a museum for the first time. Seven story quilts and tankas from the Coming to Jones Road series of 2000 and 2010 capture evocative and memorable visions of a late 18th-century epic journey to freedom by a group of slaves combining dramatic episodes, and counterpointed by heroic icons from Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman to Martin Luther King Jr. Some scenes are set within hauntingly sumptuous nocturnal landscapes; all are described with a vibrant palette and set off by text-enriched backgrounds and borders. The large-scale paintings resonate with family and national historic narrative. Ringgold’s characteristic duality of beautiful imagery and deceptively simple characters and storylines repeatedly challenge the viewers to reexamine mythologies of cultural memory and identity.

The exhibition includes examples in various media by the artist, such as masks, dolls, soft sculptures, painted story quilts, drawings, prints and illustrations. In addition to Coming to Jones Road, other highlights include the Declaration of Freedom and Independence quilt (2009), Jazz Stories (2004), and the complete illustrations for Tar Beach (1991) and Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail (2007).

The SCAD Museum of Art, Trustees Lecture Series, Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, and the Savannah Black Heritage Festival sponsor the exhibition and lecture, with generous support from the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation (www.jacobandgwenlawrence.org). The SCAD Museum of Art is open Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 1-5 p.m. For more information, call 912.525.7191 or contact [email protected]

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