Jack Whitten: The Messenger

(Hardback)

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This comprehensive monograph accompanies the first full retrospective to explore the groundbreaking art of Jack Whitten, one of the foremost American artists of the postwar period, working between the 1960s and 2010s in New York.

Jack Whitten (American, 1939-2018) changed the way we see art and society. He defied traditional boundaries between abstraction and representation, pictures and things, culture and technology, individual identity and global history. Raised under the "American Apartheid" of the segregated South in the 1940s, Whitten undertook an extraordinary journey in becoming an artist, convinced that by changing form, he could help change the world. Despite pressure from peers to create figurative art, he was a key proponent of creating abstract art that responded to social turmoil; to his own identity as a Black artist; and to sea changes in technology and ecology. Over 50 extraordinary years, he invented new ways of painting through a series of artistic innovations and strategies that are the first of their kind.

Published to accompany the first retrospective of Whitten's expansive practice, this richly illustrated catalogue presents the full range of his career across all media. An overview essay by curator Michelle Kuo and focused texts by acclaimed art historians, curators, conservators, and artists on individual works and series present new research and scholarship, advancing our understanding of the artist's work. A selection of the Whitten's own writings and previously unpublished archival materials bring into focus an artist deeply engaged with social issues, race, world politics, music, and science, and shed light on his infinitely complex and ambitious explorations of process, materials, and form.

Edited by Michelle Kuo, with contributions by Sampada Aranke, Anna Deavere Smith, Michael Duffy, Mark Godfrey, Michelle Kuo, George Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Richard Shiff, and Annie Wilker. Chronology by Kiko Aebi and David Sledge. Bibliography by Helena Klevorn, Eana Kim, Dana Liljegren, and David Sledge.

Author Bio

Michelle Kuo is Chief Curator at Large and Publisher at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Sampada Aranke is an Associate Professor of Art History and Comparative Studies at Ohio State University.

Anna Deavere Smith is an actress, playwright, author, and professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is the founding director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University.

Michael Duffy is Paintings Conservator in the Department of Conservation at MoMA.

Mark Godfrey is an art historian, critic, and curator based in London.

George E. Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, and trombonist. He is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music and Area Chair in Composition at Columbia University.

Glenn Ligon is an artist based in New York.

Julie Mehretu is an artist based in New York.

Richard Shiff is the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at The University of Texas at Austin, where he directs the Center for the Study of Modernism.

Annie Wilker is a Paper Conservator in the Department of Conservation at MoMA.

Kiko Aebi is the Katz Curator at the Colby College Museum of Art.

Eana Kim is an art historian and curator and former curatorial assistant at the Museum of Modern Art.

Helena Klevorn is the Curatorial Assistant to the Chief Curator at Large and Publisher at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Dana Liljegren is a Curatorial Assistant in the department of Painting & Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

David Sledge is an art historian and curator and former Mellon-Marron Research Consortium Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art.

Jack Whitten (1939-2018) was a pioneering American artist renowned for his abstract paintings and sculptures. Born in Bessemer, Alabama, he spent his career working as a painter in New York City and sculptor in Crete. His innovative techniques in acrylic paint redefined the possibilities of the medium. This landmark survey at MoMA foregrounds an artist who transformed the relationship between art and society.