An upcoming exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) celebrates the 25th anniversary of the founding of the University of Michigan.th Anniversary of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, one of the few museums in the country that focuses exclusively on art by and for women of the African diaspora. The exhibition “Silver lining,” runs from August 24 to January 5 and features 40 works from the Spelman collection.
“This will be a unique opportunity for the people of Ann Arbor and the surrounding area to gain access to many works by artists central to African-American and American art,” says Julia Elizabeth Neal, assistant professor of art history at the University of Michigan and guest curator of “Silver Linings.”
Spelman College is a prestigious historically black college for women. It was founded in 1881, when most black women (and men) were barred from studying at other educational institutions.
Neal, an Atlanta native who taught at Spelman from 2022 to 2023, calls “Silver Linings” “a really balanced exhibition in terms of genres,” including works of abstraction, figuration and photography, among others.
Neal calls Spelman College a “critical site” because for generations it has “invested in the education of predominantly black students, but also in building, institutionalizing and historicizing its growing art collection.” Spelman “has always recognized the value of integrating the arts into a healthy and balanced humanistic education,” Neal says.
“Silver Linings” includes artworks that span the spectrum of what Neal calls “black aesthetic development.” The exhibition will include, for example, “Hottentot Venus” by acclaimed photographer Renee Cox.
The picture refers to Sarah Baartman, a woman from the South African nomadic Khoikhoi tribe. At the beginning of the 19th century.th In the 17th century, Baartman was exhibited in Europe, where white colonialists presented her naked body as an attraction that was either ridiculed or “displayed in pseudoscientific and racist instances in which the black female body was essentialized and degraded because of its shape and size,” Neal says.
In “Hottentot Venus” (a name that has been used pejoratively for Baartman and other African women), Cox portrays herself as Baartman, with molded breasts and metal buttocks strapped to her body.
In doing so, says Neal, Cox essentially “intervened in the history of representational art by placing her body in the context of constructions of black femininity and black female sexuality.”
In addition to Cox’s works, Silver Linings also features works by renowned artists such as Betty Blayton, Howardena Pindell, Benny Andrews and Elizabeth Catlett.
By presenting “Silver Linings,” Neal said, “UMMA is actively supporting the long-term work of generations of black women, intellectuals and artists by using its space to identify and showcase (black artists) and highlight their historical commitment to building such an important collection.”
UMMA offers guided tours of the exhibition, presented by curators such as Neal and Liz Andrews. For more information about these tours, visit the Exhibition website.
In addition to the exhibition itself, UMMA has collaborated with Ypsilanti-based activist Yodit Mesfin Johnson to create a series of Events is intended to celebrate “black art, culture and community.”
Events curated by Mesfin Johnson include a private brunch for black women by chef Nina Love, a family day and a musical performance by Detroit-based artist Supercoolwicked.
“The goal of these events is to center Black women … as well as a broader history and energy in support of the role that Blackness plays in many people’s lives,” Neal says. “It’s a celebratory moment.”
Natalia Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, and more.
Photo courtesy of UMMA.
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