It’s Not Black And White
by Lise Ragbir
As Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, I recently had the privilege of working with artist Adrian Armstrong and guest-curator Phillip Townsend to mount an exhibition of portraits that, as Townsend says, ‘challenges long-held stereotypes related to race and gender, and celebrates difference’.
The exhibition, entitled …with new eyes…, exemplifies how we can blur the lines of what divides, and how to have new conversations about what exists in intersecting spaces. It encourages viewers to shed old ideas and perceptions in an attempt to move forward. ‘Armstrong’s green, pink and red portraits illustrate his ability to push portraiture beyond the Eurocentric binary spectrum of black and white, and picture an imaginatively diverse Black Diaspora’, says Townsend. Exhibitions such as these stand not only to break down divisions, but also to create a much-needed new vocabulary as we push up against a range of systems borne from a White patriarchy – which includes colonialism.
Image: installation view of "with new eyes...", University of Texas, Black Studies Idea Lab gallery (2020). Courtesy of Lise Ragbir
“Black and Brown people have historically and traditionally been underrepresented within the canon. But in the current racial climate, some are asking: is that a canon we want to be a part of”
I was born and raised on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka, commonly known as Montreal, Canada. My parents emigrated to Montreal from the Caribbean island Iëre or Kairi, also known as Trinidad. My parents’ ethnicities are typical of Trinidadians: bearing lineages of descendants of the Transatlantic African slave trade, indentured labourers brought to the island from India, colonisers from France and Portugal, extinguished indigenous populations.
Image: installation view of "with new eyes...", University of Texas, Black Studies Idea Lag gallery (2020). Courtesy of Lise Ragbir
In Trinidad – a country where people of colour are the majority – these individual and multiple layers of ancestry are understood and recognised, even as a blended identity is assumed. However, in predominantly White spaces – from countries, to institutions, to intimate social gatherings – these layers tend to get pushed into the binary spaces. They literally become Black and White. Growing up in Montreal, I identified as Black. (I still do.) Ours was the Black family in our mostly immigrant neighbourhood. Yet when our family travelled to Trinidad to visit grandmothers and aunts and uncles and cousins, we were all the pieces that had been folded into Blackness.
Unfolding – in essence what artist Adrian Armstrong is asking viewers to do – stands to expand conversations beyond the structures that have been put in place by a White patriarchy. While all artists seek to push boundaries, artists of colour are additionally tasked with moving beyond the box within which they are automatically put. This effort, on the shoulders of artists of colour, has the potential to shift the ways we discuss intersecting identities.
Image: Lise Ragbir in the Christian-Green Gallery. Courtesy of Lise Ragbir
As a person who has been asked, ‘No really, what are you?’ for the majority of my life, it makes sense that I used visual arts – the manipulation of material objects – to unpack dense questions about what I am. I even went to art school. But as the question (and answer) became more complicated, I began to use the written word to conjure a range of visuals, and even sounds – personal, private reactions that are uniquely revealed for each reader, depending on what the reader brings to the equation. Yet while I personally take comfort in writing, I understand this is not the only tool for this type of exploration.
“In predominantly White spaces – from countries, to institutions, to intimate social gatherings – these layers tend to get pushed into the binary spaces. They literally become Black and White.”
Just as I believe a set of words can conjure infinite images, I also believe one image can conjure infinite questions. In this way, as Adrian Armstrong uses a palette of bright colours to push us beyond traditional notions of black and white, he provides a visual vocabulary to prompt critical questions such as: what layers are missed if everything is black and white? Or, if we consider Amanda Gorman’s prompt to see beyond what divides us as we look to the future, Armstrong’s work might ask: how do broader conversations stand to impact all of us?
To be clear, this type of visual vocabulary is not merely a way to navigate liminal spaces, but rather a way to disrupt the idea of liminality itself. With the implementation of such vocabularies, artists, writers and thinkers stand to make what is liminal, plain and unavoidable – pushing traditionally under-heard conversations to the forefront. By using creative expression as a way to give shape to the often-slippery considerations of identity, artists can shed light on ideas that have been forced into the corners that exist beyond a White patriarchy.
Image: Lise Ragbir curating during quarantine (2020). Courtesy of Lise Ragbir
Black and Brown people have historically and traditionally been underrepresented within the canon. But in the current racial climate, some are asking: is that a canon we want to be a part of?
To create art, prompt questions and further conversations are privileges that come with responsibilities, which, for an artist, include probing a system that is inherently flawed. They include questioning the structures that have positioned us where we are. They include building spaces that reduce the gap between spelling-out and understanding. They include existing beyond liminal spaces as we hope to dismantle what divides us. They include lifting our gazes from where we have been told to stand, to creating the place we want to go.
Image: Lise Ragbir. Photo: Riley Blanks Reed
Lise Ragbir is a curator and writer with over 20 years of cultural management experience. The journey has taken her from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, to the United Nations, to a Swiss corporate collection, to one of the most notable collections of public art in the state of Texas. From her work as a grant-maker with private foundations, to her work with museums and community-based cultural organizations, her career spans public, private, for-profit and non-profit cultural initiatives. She holds a BFA in Art History and Studio Art from Concordia University in Montreal, and completed her graduate work in Museum Studies at Harvard University. Her essays about race, identity, immigration and cultural representation have appeared in the Guardian, Time Magazine, USA Today and Hyperallergic, among other publications.