While she had originally planned to meet with a series of museums to determine where her gift should go, it took only one visit to the Blanton and a conversation with Roberts and Director Simone Wicha to finalize her choice.Īccording to Roberts, it was one piece in particular that spurred the donor’s decisiveness. She was looking only to fund, not select, acquisitions that would help diversify a museum’s collection. But she did have an objective-to help highlight and celebrate the work of Black artists. The donor had no ties to Austin or the Blanton Museum prior to her donation.
“That was a very sincere gesture that I thought was quite wonderful and unusual.” “She wanted to be anonymous because she wanted it to be about the artists and not a celebration of her gift,” says Roberts, whose curation efforts focus on acquiring new modern and contemporary pieces for the Blanton. “Assembly” visitors can see paintings rendered in pastels and acrylics, yes, but also a piano outfitted in hundreds of house keys by artist Nari Ward that’s paired with a video depicting Black cultural traditions in Savannah, Georgia a fabric-based sculpture by artist Kevin Beasley made of artfully piled scraps of durags and kaftans and a flashing neon sign by artist Cauleen Smith that reads alternately “I will light you up” and “I will light up your life,” illuminating the words Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia said to Sandra Bland during the traffic stop that led to her death in police custody juxtaposed with lyrics from Debby Boone’s 1977 song, “You Light Up My Life.”Īll the featured pieces were acquired by the Blanton thanks to a single anonymous donor looking to expand the museum’s collection of work by Black contemporary artists.
The exhibition, on display in the museum’s Huntington Gallery through May, features 19 works by 12 Black artists in a multitude of mediums and constructions. “It’s kind of a wonderful story,” she says. In fact, Blanton curator Veronica Roberts stresses, the genesis of “Assembly: New Acquisitions by Contemporary Black Artists” is an extremely rare occurrence that the museum has previously not seen to this extent. The way the Blanton Museum of Art came by the paintings, sculptures, and installations that make up one of its current exhibitions is an anomaly for the institution. No Comments Noah Purifoy, “Restoration,” 2001, mixed media construction, 68 x 41 x 4 1/2 in. The Blanton Museum Is Featuring More Works by Black Artists Than Ever Before in Its Permanent Collection
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