Whitfield Lovell

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.