A new exhibition exploring Milwaukee’s Black Arts Movement just opened at Gallery 507 in Bronzeville. It’s called, “Building Bronzeville: Milwaukee's Black Arts Movement.”
It features more than 40 works from artists, activists and cultural workers who built Milwaukee as a hub of the global Black Arts Movement beginning in the 1960s.
"Milwaukee’s north side gave rise to a Black cultural renaissance that reverberated far beyond the city’s boundaries," said Ra Joy, the executive director of the Bronzeville Center for Arts, at the exhibition's opening.
The exhibition introduces visitors to Bronzeville’s art scene between 1967 and 1981. Joy says part of the mission of the BCA is to expand Bronzeville’s legacy as a vibrant artistic hub of the Midwest.
"What I really appreciate about that era, and this exhibition, is a true embrace of artistry and community. The artists and arts collectives of that era recognize that art and civic life are indispensable, that creating a painting and creating a public are both acts of community building. And we’re really proud to help celebrate and share that legacy, and to stand on the shoulders of those pioneering efforts," Joy said.
Milwaukee’s Black Arts Movement was part of the global Black Arts Movement that happened from 1965 to 1975.
The term "Black Arts Movement" was coined by poet Larry Neal, who described it as a cultural revolution in art and ideas. Many of its participants shared the ideologies of the Black Power Movement: of Black self-determination, political beliefs, and African American culture. Prominent figures included Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni.
In Milwaukee, leading figures included Gerald Duane Coleman, William J. Christian, and Evelyn Patricia Terry. She says it’s meaningful to have her artwork showcased.
"No one ever asked me for older work before. So, now I feel like I’m on the level of the famous artists," Terry said.
The “Building Bronzeville” exhibition features paintings, screenprints, magazines, flyers and archival audio and video. The works come from the Milwaukee County Historical Society, the Milwaukee Public Library, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the South Side Community Arts Center in Chicago.
"It’s really significant to highlight the Milwaukee Black Arts Movement, specifically because it was a moment of self-determination," exhibition co-curator Phoenix Brown said. "Especially after, like, the uprising in 1967 and the housing crisis here in Milwaukee. So, with that, artists kind of utilized artwork to kind of take a stand about their cultural production and reclaim themselves as artists."
Brown said one of her favorite pieces is a 1973 painting by Michael James Ward called “The Ghetto Scene (Tenement.)”
It shows a red brick building with a fire escape as the backdrop of a day in the life of residents. One figure is looking out of her window, people are chatting, children are playing on the fire escape, and a woman is hanging laundry on a clothesline. There’s graffiti on the walls; children’s drawings, the quote: “Power to the People,” and “Slick + Pam,” which Brown says is like a romantic etching someone might do in a tree.
"We know, like, tenements — they were often places or homes for people who were either working class, had like low income, or like people were also immigrants as well," Brown said. "So, what this painting says to me is that there was life and cultural production in these buildings, in these neighborhoods. And then off to the side there’s like a very clear, blue sky. So, it kind of reminds me that like, yeah, everything is very clear. The future is this community; it belongs to this community."
Brown said Milwaukee’s art history belongs alongside all of the other narratives about the city, especially because there may be people who don’t know about it.
Like 26-year-old artist Chantez Heines-Perry. "I wasn’t aware that we had, like, our own little Black renaissance here in Milwaukee. So, it’s cool to see just the art of the time," he said.
Married couple Kenge and Reggie Adams recognize the exhibition’s significance due to the current political climate. "I feel like the way right now where the country is, I think a lot of the political pressure especially around arts, and Blackness, and culture – I think we really need to have a resurgence of this in the community," Kenge said.
"I think there’s a resurgence in interest in this kind of art. And so, a lot of this art — not necessarily protest art — but from the 1970s, you know, that was definitely a protest time. I think that the art is very relative now," Reggie added.
“Building Bronzeville: Milwaukee’s Black Arts Movement” is on display at Gallery 507 until February.
