Ntozake, 2020
Rico Gatsonexpand_more
Colored pencil and found photograph on paperexpand_more
Gift of funds from Mary and Bob Merskyexpand_more 2021.23
Not on Viewexpand_more
The mixed media work, Ntozake, is part of Rico Gatson’s long-running “Icons” series of paintings, drawings, and prints celebrating prominent Black civil rights activists, writers, musicians, actors, and sports figures. Initiated in 2007, the series has featured such notable figures as Harriet Tubman, Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Muhammad Ali, among others. In these works, Gatson combines existing black-and-white photographs of his subjects with radiating lines of vibrant colors—red, green, yellow, orange, black—that symbolize centers of power and call to mind colors associated with the Pan-African flag and Black nationalism. In this example from 2020, Gatson celebrates the prominent Black feminist playwright, poet, and writer Ntozake Shange (1948-2019), whose literary work explores issues relating to race, feminism, and Black consciousness. Internationally acclaimed, Shange is part of the Black Arts Movement, a subset of the Black Power Movement, and is perhaps best remembered for her award-winning play For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, a groundbreaking “choreopoem” that combines poetry, dance, and music in dramatic monologues that explore the life experiences of contemporary women of color.
Details
- Title
- Ntozake
- Artist Life
- born 1966
- Role
- Artist
- Accession Number
- 2021.23
- Provenance
- The artist, New York; [Miles McEnery Gallery, New York]; sold to MIA, 2021.
- Curator Approved
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