The Currency of Meaning and Other Tales
August 5 to October 3, 2020

Installation Photography : Christian Carone

Image Photography : Frank Stewart

Press Release

The Currency of Meaning and Other Tales

August 5 to October 3, 2020

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The Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba is pleased to present an exhibition of abstract paintings created over more than 60 years between 1953 and 2019. In The Currency of Meaning and Other Tales, the artists are Charles Alston, Philip Hampton, Cynthia Hawkins, Norman Lewis, Al Loving, Algernon Miller, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Nestor Otero, Joe Overstreet, Ray Parker, Louis Sloan, Alma Thomas, Mildred Thompson, and Hale Woodruff. Thirty works on canvas, paper, and board demonstrate the breadth of creativity and exploration in the work of these 14 artists.  

The exhibition is a gathering of several abstract languages and practices, including Abstract Expressionism along with Geometric, Intuitive, Gestural and Minimal approaches. Many of the works presented, while being non-representational and “formed out of a process of self-exploration” are also works that relate to the African American experience, and that reference an Afro-Futurist aesthetic. 

Taken as a whole, in their use of line and shape, proportion and color, the artists in The Currency of Meaning and Other Tales convey important ideas. In themselves, the paintings demonstrate how drawn lines, marks and form can communicate with or without any association to representational imagery. The paintings are inspired by nature, the universe, social and political topics, history and science. “In their conception, the themes are coupled with powerful visual directions. The expansiveness of their forms is grounded in non-traditional as well as conceptual approaches to abstract drawing, painting, watercolor, and collage-based processes.”

A viewer may discern a seascape in Charles Alston’s Hudson River (1966) and the cityscape of Norman Lewis’ Untitled (1960), or Mildred Thompson’s reference to scientific research in Atmospherics (2003). For Alma Thomas, nature-based Color Field watercolors (1966) are an end in themselves. Algernon Miller’s Jupiter Effect from the mid-1970s, and his Dance of Light from 2019 illustrate an artist’s concentrated focus over 40 years. The symbolism within Hale Woodruff’s abstractions may be deciphered as a narrative. Beginning with his use of patterns in the 1950s, his paintings evolve as encoded oral histories and the physicalization of memory. In such series as Cynthia Hawkins’ Untitled (1989) large, colorful, expressionist works, the focus is strictly on color and composition that entice the viewer to find meaning. In Joe Overstreet’s The Navigator (2011), materials, technique and composition manifest in rich surfaces enhanced by radiant color. 

Kenkeleba programs are funded in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and many generous friends.