What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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JANUARY 28-FEBRUARY 3, 2018 WHAT'S UP! 9 FAQ 'Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power' WHEN — Feb. 3-April 23 WHERE — Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville COST — $10 nonmembers INFO — 418-5700, crystal bridges.org FYI Soul of a Nation: Artists in Conversation The symposium will take place from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Feb. 3 at Crystal Bridges but is sold out. The museum will be live-streaming the program, with a link available at crys- talbridges.org/soul-of-a-na- tion-symposium the day of the event. After the symposium has concluded, Crystal Bridges will upload the full event to its YouTube channel at a later date. Organizations interested in being a viewing site for the symposium can register their location at the museum's website and will receive extra information and a viewing kit. COVER STORY It's no small achievement for Crystal Bridges to be hosting so many prolific artists on one day, for one event, and Haynes and senior museum educator Moira Anderson are excited to see how the artists' experiences will affect audiences' engagement with and understanding of the exhibition. "Most of the artists are prepared to discuss the artworks they have in the 'Soul of a Nation' exhibition, but this also provides the opportunity to hear personal stories and direct accounts of what was happening while they were creating the work," Anderson reveals. In addition, many of the artists are still working and can speak to how their art continues to be responsive to the world around them. "Any time we bring a living artist in to speak about their work, it ends up creating [such] a richer access point," she continues. "We're hoping [guests] will have that opportunity themselves to go back to the exhibition and to examine that work with some of the questions that might arise while they're listening to the presenters speak." One example is the lasting influence of groups like AfriCOBRA in Chicago and the Kamoinge Workshop in New York. Founded in the 1960s, members of both collectives will speak during the symposium about their struggle against inequality and their goals as artists. "This exhibition is a reflection and reminder [of] the men and women who picked up the camera in order to document and reflect on the beauty, style and struggles in black communities across the country," offers Deborah Willis, moderator for the photography panel discussion with the Kamoinge founders. "We have seen countless images on black life across the diaspora, and I consider these photographs to be a mosaic of the black experience [as] they expand our consciousness and challenge what we think we know about black life." "I think it's going to allow for much deeper understanding and people are going to see this new dimension to the work," Haynes adds of the symposium's significance. "We'll hear the different perspectives about individual experiences, [which is nice], because I think often we group people together or say, 'This is the way black artists experienced this time,' or 'This is how they made work.' But this exhibition shows the multiple voices, and with the symposium we'll get to hear firsthand from multiple people." Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Photo: Edward C. Robison III. "BLACK UNITY" BY ELIZABETH CATLETT, 1968. CEDAR. — "I love that this gesture that has become so hand-in-hand (no pun intended) with the civil rights movement — this idea of the raised fist but carved in [cedar], a very familiar wood that we all know — I think there's something very beautiful and almost timeless about this sculpture," Haynes shares. Photo courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC "DID THE BEAR SIT UNDER A TREE?" — Oil on canvas with painted fabric collage and zipper, was created in 1969 by Benny Andrews and is part of Crystal Bridges' "Soul of a Nation" exhibition.