Exhibit on being Black in America a punch to the gut
Works on display in Kinderhook gallery
What is there not to like about a show on three floors of a massive gallery that includes almost 60 significant artists and a theme about being Black in America to make you cry? Maybe just being devastated?
The emotional tremors of “This Tender, Fragile Thing ” at Jack Shainman’s Kinderhook gallery, the School, were a gut punch I didn’t expect. Conclusion: Good art, great show. Go now.
I wish I could leave it there and call it a wrap.
There are layers of history here, from the core of the civil rights movement and the Black Panthers in the 1960s and early 1970s, to a specific exhibition from 2005 at Jack Shainman in New York called “The Whole World is Rotten.” And then there is this latest response, which creates a further cascade down the
Nick Cave, Arm Peace, 2018. Cast bronze, vintage sunburst and tole flowers. rapids of recent Black history in the U.S.
You don’t need history to feel the trauma of a scary traffic stop recorded on a police car dashcam, projected as a 2016 video by Arthur Jafa in one of the little rooms. Or to get the stark 2012 statement by Glenn Ligon and Matt Dilling, who literally scorched the word “America” in all caps onto paper, upside down. Only slightly more distanced are the four large silvery silkscreen on mylar works by Adam Pendelton that mash together images and text with vitriolic fervor.
The best of the show is its best art, if you are able to separate the parts from the whole. The Carrie Mae Weems-tilted appropriation of Charles Moore’s 1963 photographs of protesters being attacked by police is not just a reminder of the brutal facts (much as Warhol’s related appropriations were at the time) but also an integration into her own storied
“This Tender, Fragile Thing”
■ Where: The School, 25 Broad St., Kinderhook
■ When: Through April 30
■ Hours: Saturday 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
■ Admission: Free
■ Info: https://jackshainman.com/ exhibitions/this-tender-fragilething-2022 or 518-758-1628