Catalog of the exhibition held at the Colby College Museum of Art in 2019.
Contents:
Cabinet playlist / Briana Williams. Preface / Daisy Desrosiers -- Introduction / Theaster Gates -- Parents, take your children to Theaster Gates's Facsimile cabinet of women origin stories / Krista Aronson -- A Black woman's ephemera, an archival reflection / Dorothy Berry -- Reflections on the resilience of Black women / Danielle M. Conway -- Heart of the matter / Elizabeth Finch -- Ebony, Jet, and the gift of second sight: Theaster Gates's Facsimile cabinet of women origin stories as a miraculous moment / Cheryl Townsend Gilkes -- Hundreds of boats were used to bring people from their flooded homes to safety / Lareese Hall -- Personal reflections on Theaster Gates's Facsimile cabinet of women origin stories / Lynn McKinley-Grant -- A catalog of artifacts and unrealized ideas: a response / Erin Murphy -- Reach / Asma Naeem -- Chords of reverence / Ellen Y. Tani -- Hu: a series of poetic episodes in response to Theaster Gates's Facsimile cabinet of women origin stories / Arisa White -- Cabinet playlist / Briana Williams.
Summary:
"This book features essays and other reflections commissioned in response to the Facsimile Cabinet of Women Origin Stories, a monumental participatory work by Theaster Gates (born 1973). The Cabinet includes nearly 3,000 framed images of women from the Johnson Publishing Company archive, and highlights from the collection appear in this edited volume. Founded in 1942, Chicago-based Johnson Publishing chronicled the lives of Black Americans for more than seven decades through the magazines Ebony and Jet. Composed from arguably the most important archive of American Black visual culture in the 20th century, Gates' work centers the essential and too often unsung role of women in this history. When the Cabinet was exhibited at the Colby College Museum of Art, 12 women from a wide range of disciplines (including archivists, legal scholars, anthropologists and librarians, as well as curators, visual artists, filmmakers, writers and art historians) were invited to reflect on a work that brings a sisterhood of images to light."--Publisher's website.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.