Ancestry and Innovation

NEW YORK CITY

:The exhibition "Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the Collection" currently on view at the American Folk Art Museum through September 4, highlights complex and vibrant quilts, paintings, works on paper and sculpture by contemporary African American artists.

The exhibition, which is organized by curators Stacy C. Hollander and Brooke Davis Anderson, explores through the museum's rich holdings the range of artistic expressions by self-taught African American artists from the rural South and the urban North. Comprising approximately nine quilts and nearly 30 works of art in various media, "Ancestry and Innovation" includes paintings by an elder generation of creators, such as Sam Doyle, David Butler, Bessie Harvey and Clementine Hunter; works by contemporary masters such as Thornton Dial Sr; and provocative pieces by emerging artists such as Kevin Sampson and Willie LeRoy Elliot. Juxtaposed with richly patterned and graphically exciting quilts, the exhibition celebrates the ongoing contribution of black artists to the kaleidoscope of American cultural and visual experience.

Recently, important works by established artists in the cannon of African American art have been acquired. These include an early painting by Horace Pippin, a figural carving by William Edmondson, and works on paper by Bill Traylor. Several major gifts, such as the Blanchard-Hill collection, have also contributed to the depth and diversity of the museum's collection in this area.

The museum's collection of African American quilts is characterized by brilliant and exuberant interpretations of designs and techniques. The "Star of Bethlehem with Satellite Stars Quilt" by Leola Pettway scintillates with eye-dazzling color and improvisational riffs on a traditional pattern. Pettway was born into a family of quilt makers from the insular African American community of Gee's Bend, Ala.

Idabell Bester's "Strip Quilt" is filled with visual stops of contrasting colors that recall the weft and warp of West African men's woven cloth. In "Snail Trail" by Mary Maxtion of Boligee, Ala., a single, repeated motif explodes in scale and meanders off the boundaries of the quilt. Many of the quilts, such as Mozell Benson's abstract "Strip Variation," employ strong contrasts of vibrant color in bold geometric forms.

Among the recent gifts on view for the first time is the sculpture "Black Horse of Revelations" by Tennessee artist Bessie Harvey. A fantastic, large-scale sculpture of twisted roots that intersect one another to form the body of the animal is combined with a simpler piece of wood embellished with fabric, beads and glitter that depicts the rider sitting atop the animal. The emotional power of this aggressive work is as terrifying and startling as the biblical tale of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Clementine Hunter documented her community of Melrose Plantation, Natchitoches, La., at work, play and church. The regal "Black Matriarch" painting reveals all the hallmarks of Hunter's style - a flattened picture plane on which the schematic form and shape of the woman is painted with dynamic punchy color combinations. Her elaborate quiltlike headdress brings vibrant pulsing life to the elegant, sensuously outlined silhouette of the woman.

In conjunction with the exhibition, educational programs are scheduled and an article will be published in the spring issue of Folk Art magazine.

The American Folk Art Museum is at 45 West 53rd Street. For information, 212-265-1040.