Faith Ringgold is a multi-talented person. She is a painter, writer, speaker, mixed media sculptor, and performance artist, based in New Jersey. Besides that, she is also a political activist and professor emeritus at the University of California.
Her first retrospective exhibition in New York, “Faith Ringgold: American People”, will be set to run from February 17 to June 5, 2022, at New Museum.
This exhibition presents Ringgold’s works that span more than sixty years, from her multi-disciplinary practices of the Harlem Renaissance to the political art of young Black artists today. Ringgold has explored both her personal stories and collective histories ‘to amplify the struggle for social justice and equity’.
Faith Ringgold, The American People Series #20: Die, 1967. Courtesy of Artist. https://www.faithringgold.com/portfolio/
Ringgold portrays the political and social changes in America during her lifetime. Her paintings are bold, honest, but remain cheerful. American People Series #20: Die (1967) is one of her remarkable works in mural-scale painting that depicts riots caused by race conflict in the United States around the 1960s. In the painting, blood scattered, men and women across many races dressed in business attire, killed each other, wound, and laid on the ground. Their children were scared and could not be saved.
The composition, subject, and abstract background of this work remind us of Picasso’s Guernica (1937) which features an ancient town named Guernica that was bombed by Nazi planes during the Spanish civil war. Like in Guernica, the horror of race conflict and its aftermath are well-expressed in Ringgold’s painting.
Faith Ringgold, The American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding, 1967. Courtesy of Artist. https://www.faithringgold.com/
During her prolific career, Ringgold visualizes race and gender injustice taking place in the United States. American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding (1967) depicts three people standing and linking their arms. The American flag was superimposed in the picture. A black man, a woman in the middle, and a white man. Blood dripping from the red strips and the black man’s wound. This painting suggests the social injustice that happened in the US and the sacrifices of Black Americans.
Faith Ringgold Street Story Quilt, 1985. Courtesy of Artist. https://www.metmuseum.org/
In 1985, Faith Ringgold made Street Story Quilt that was inspired by Tibetan thangka and Central African designs. This work tells the stories of African American life in her resident community of Harlem. It consists of three pieces of quilted fabric painted by Ringgold. Each grid of curtained windows has its own story of traumatic events experienced by Black figures in everyday life.
Ringgold believes that art can document time, place, and cultural identity. She asked, “How could I, as an African American woman artist, document what was happening around me?” Ringgold’s works are parallel with artworks of leading world painters that address violence as subject matter, such as Jacob Lawrence and Pablo Picasso.
Ringgold’s artworks are awe-inspiring, critical, and lighten up. Her works are pivotal to remind the viewers of human tragedy and prevent the mass violence happen again in the future.