Whitfield Lovell: Passages

Whitfield Lovell: Passages accompanies a major traveling
exhibition of the artist's masterful conté crayon drawings,
assemblages, and multi-sensory installations that focus on
aspects of Black history, raising questions about identity,
memory, and America's collective heritage.
Whiteld Lovell (b. 1959, Bronx), a 2007 MacArthur
Foundation fellowship recipient and conceptual artist, creates
exquisite drawings inspired by his own collection of vintage
photographs of unidentied African Americans taken between
the Emancipation Proclamation and the civil rights movement.
He pairs his meticulously rendered drawings done on paper or
on salvaged wooden boards with found objects, creating
enigmatic assemblages and stand-alone tableaux that are rich
with symbolism and ambiguity and evoking personal
memories, ancestral connections, and the collective American
past.
This richly illustrated volume features essays by leading
scholars that contextualize Lovell's work through the
exploration of compelling elements such as sound and card
playing, contemplating memory as method.