Brooklyn Museum: ‘Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties’

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Holland Cotter

"Witness (detail)" (1968) by Benny Andrews (American, 1930–2006).

NEW YORK---This imaginatively chosen show lays to rest the idea that photography was the only memorable art the civil rights era produced. Most of what’s here is painting, sculpture and collage. The roster is racially and ethnically mixed, the artists varied in degrees of familiarity. Some, like Jacob Lawrence, Frank Stella and Norman Rockwell, are well known. Others — like [Benny Andrews,] Cleveland Bellow, LeRoy Clarke, Virginia Jaramillo and John T. Riddle Jr. — are rare visitors to our major museums. The show gets the balance of history right in other ways too, by letting it be confused and confusing, a thing of loose strands and hard questions still looking for answers. [link]

Brooklyn Museum: "Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties" (Through July 13); 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY; (718) 638-5000; brooklynmuseum.org

"City Limits" (1969) by Philip Guston (American, b. Canada, 1913–1980)

"New Kids in the Neighborhood (Negro in the Suburbs)" (1967) by Norman Rockwell (American, 1894–1978)