MEMORY AND METAPHOR: THE ART OF ROMARE BEARDEN, 1940-1987
Despite Bearden’s success during his lifetime, he is no longer well-known. His mainstream contemporaries of the 60s–pop artists such as Warhol and Lichtenstein or abstract painters such as Stella and Olitski–have been written into histories of recent American art, while he is often omitted. Yet he transformed the medium of collage and can hardly be termed an obscure artist. Concerned that Bearden might be excluded from art-history texts, the Studio Museum in Harlem has organized a comprehensive retrospective of more than 100 of his watercolors, oil paintings, and collages. “Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare Bearden, 1940-1987” will be on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art through November 10; then it will travel to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C.
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This work is linked in one important respect to many of Bearden’s collages: a main character (here the piano player) looks straight out at the viewer, so that as we look, we are regarded in turn. The gaze pulls us into the scene and prevents us from assuming the position of a distanced outsider. Bearden used this device in another impressive “projection” from 1964 titled Conjur Woman, in which a centrally placed woman with the eyes of an animal looks out at the viewer with a steady, direct gaze. Nearly blending here and there with the surrounding photographs of trees, grasses, and birds, she looks not at all surprised to see us. We’re the ones who are startled.
