ART-PRESENTATION: Colored People-Time Quotidian Pasts

Matthew Angelo Harrison, polygon mesh of Batetela Statue 30-55-1 2019, original sculpture purchased circa 1930 from J. Noble White, Courtesy of Matthew Angelo Harrison, Jessica Silverman Gallery and the University of PennsylvaniaToday the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (ICA) launches “Colored People Time: Quotidian Pasts”, the second chapter in the experimental three-part exhibition series “Colored People Time” that re-envisions the traditional exhibition format to build new narratives and public discourse around the everyday experiences of black Americans.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo ICA University of Pennsylvania Archive

The exhibition “Colored People Time: Quotidian Pasts” reconsiders the trafficking of blackness through the colonial practices of collecting, commodifying, and exhibiting people and objects from the African continent. The long history of the exploitation of both the African people and their cultures is told, in the exhibition, through the configuration of a few small objects—a photograph, a journal entry, a letter and a CBS television show. These archival materials, which range from 1930 to 1968, document key histories and biographies, from the birth  of anthropology and ethnographic research in  universities and museums to the height of PanAfricanism. At the center of this exhibition is a newly commissioned installation by Matthew Angelo Harrison. Harrison’s 3D-printed works are manipulations of a selection of sculptures held in the Penn Museum’s collection from six countries: Angola, the former Benin Kingdom of Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and Sierra Leone. By pairing Penn Museum’s archival materials with Harrison’s contemporary sculptures, this exhibition challenges us to question how we see and make meaning of “authentic” African sculpture and  how we assign cultural and commercial capital and value on African objects.  Broken into three distinct chapters opening over the course of 2019: “Mundane Futures”, “Quotidian Pasts” and “Banal Presents”, the yearlong exhibition offers a profound exploration into how the history of chattel slavery and colonialism in America not only shaped the foundations of our country but exists in our present moment and impacts our future. The title of the exhibition draws from the black vernacular phrase “Colored People’s Time” which has functioned as a linguistic tool for people of color to control their own temporality even when placed within the construct of Western time.

The artists represented within this exhibition include: Aria Dean, Kevin Jerome Everson, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Carolyn Lazard, Dave McKenzie, Cameron Rowland, Sable Elyse Smith, and Martine Syms. accompanied by historical objects from the Black Panther Party, Sutton E. Griggs, the National Institutes of Health / Getty Images, and the African Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Info: Curators: Meg Onli and Monique Scott, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 118 S. 36th Street, Philadelphia, Duration: 26/4-11/8/19, Days & Hours: Wed 11:00-20:00, Thu-Sun 11:00-18:00, https://icaphila.org

Amandus Johnson in Angola, At encampment with natives and other explorers, University of Pennsylvania Museum Photographic Archives; standard size prints; Africa, box AF 4: Amandus Johnson in Angola; Penn Museum
Amandus Johnson in Angola, At encampment with natives and other explorers, University of Pennsylvania Museum Photographic Archives; standard size prints; Africa, box AF 4: Amandus Johnson in Angola; Penn Museum

 

 

WHAT IN THE WORLD 4, c. 1952, digital video transfered from 16mm film, color, sound, 28:28 minutes. Courtesy of the Penn Museum
WHAT IN THE WORLD 4, c. 1952, digital video transfered from 16mm film, color, sound, 28:28 minutes. Courtesy of the Penn Museum

 

 

William Ockleford Oldman with masks and headdresses, c.1920, Pacific and Atlantic Photos Ltd, Te Papa O.027326
W.O. Oldman with masks and headdresses, c.1920, Pacific and Atlantic Photos Ltd, Te Papa O.027326