Spelman museum hosts MacArthur Genius' student-assisted art exhibition

While the artwork is the engine of the show, it is driven by the words of Atlanta University Center students who wrote didactic labels interpreting the featured pieces after completing a course centered around Williams. The effect is a personifying of the “We Say” in the collection’s title.

“I never really resonated with or cared much for abstract work before the class,” admits Robyn Simpson, a senior art history major at Spelman.

“I would see it and then be like, ‘OK, this looks pretty, it looks cool.’ But Amanda Williams is just a special artist, the way that her work ties so deeply to Blackness was an entry point that I kind of saw and I started to understand. This is the first time that I feel like abstract art makes sense, at least in my brain.”

“This show is perfect, especially right now, because both the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum as well as Spelman have shows with abstraction,” says Spelman Museum’s executive director Dr. Liz Andrews, nodding to Clark’s current “Innervision” exhibition.

“It’s nice to bring that in because it can feel illegible to people that don’t ‘get it.’”

The original “What Black is This You Say?” series was born from Williams' skepticism toward the ill-fated Blackout Tuesday social media protests of 2020, when Instagram users posted black squares on their feeds, using the “#Blacklivesmatter” hashtag. The intention was to show disdain for the highly publicized murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Brianna Taylor, yet some believe it simultaneously complicated its intended mission by ironically diminishing the visibility of information protesters and organizers might find useful.

“I’ll be honest. I wasn’t feeling the blackout,” wrote Williams in a June 2020 Instagram post about a protest many observers came to see as performative.

“I hate stuff like that, but I caved. Wanted to be in solidarity. But color is everything to me. You can’t just say ‘black’ … which one? So I’m gonna inaugurate a different black each day until I don’t feel like it anymore. Why? Cuz I’m black and I can!”

What followed was a six month demonstration where Williams created her own versions of black squares by taking smartphone photos of various scenes ranging from her daughter’s braided scalp to the ceiling of a dark room. She added captions with colorful titles, like:

What black is this you say? “We weren’t cheering for OJ, we were cheering for Johnnie Cochran, Jr” — black

What black is this you say? “I thought red Kool-Aid was juice til I was 10 years old” — black

What black is this you say? “Just because I’m black and you happen to know me doesn’t make me your black friend. “—black

What black is this you say? “You proudly embrace your multiple heritages but you know for a fact that you will never be described by any cop who has pulled you over as ‘biracial’ — black

“I thought that would be interesting, kind of pairing with this idea of these different types of black,” Williams told UATL.

“When can the camera see? When does it just make everything black? When does it notice a difference? I thought that was such a beautiful metaphor between this idea of flattening all of us, to all Black people are good, all Black people are bad, all Black people are whatever. Just adding a little bit of nuance.”

Credit: Julie Yarborough

Credit: Julie Yarborough

As her Instagram posts gained momentum, friends urged her to create hand-painted versions of the work. First she began experimenting with watercolor, purposely using smaller pieces to keep the square Instagram aesthetic. While selling those pieces to collectors, Williams’ idea grew into a multiplatform project that has existed as a virtual dinner, a napkin and artist proof set, a public art installation and a book set for publication in April.

One of the original watercolor paintings caught Lowe’s eye in September 2021, while she was viewing works as an independent curator at New York City’s Armory Show.

“I was walking through the fair and discovered this small watercolor abstract work that had writing on it,” recalls Lowe. “It said, ‘what you’re not gonna do is tell a black woman what she gonna do.’ I had never seen anything like that. I started to laugh.

“From that point, I became really interested in finding out who made this because immediately, when I saw the abstract work and when I read that, I said a Black person made this and I wanted to know who was this Black person speaking to me in this way.”

Eager to showcase Williams’ collection in Atlanta, Lowe reached out and invited her to exhibit her work at Atlanta Contemporary. Williams declined. Months later, Lowe invited Williams to show her creations at Hammonds House Museum, where she served as executive director at the time, and received another no.

Williams, a painter of many years, insists she wasn’t brushing her off. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do a show, but it was kind of like, OK, I got 6,000 things going on, I can’t get my head around how to do a show,” she admitted.

Williams, a 2022 MacArthur “Genius” grant winner, said she was receiving daily requests from curators, galleries, activists and other entities wanting to work with her — many of whom didn’t realize she worked alone.

When Lowe approached Williams with a third proposal, this time as the newly appointed curator-in-residence for Spelman’s museum, her interest was piqued.

“I knew that they had also started this curatorial program run by Dr. Cheryl Finley, and I had already seen the impact of some of the young women who had come to that program,” says Williams, who stipulated that she would show at the museum if students were somehow involved.

“So I was like, oh, wait a minute, this is a great opportunity to do what Karen was interested in, but this is a unique opportunity for me to be engaging with these young women who are really going to be the standard-bearers for the art world — not just the Black art world, but for the art world in the next 30 years, like this is a pipeline.”

That plan was set in motion by Spelman inviting Williams to lecture in November 2023. The following spring semester, the Atlanta University Center Collective for the Study of Art History and Curatorial Studies offered a special topics class centered around Williams’ creations, presenting an opportunity to assist in building out the eventual exhibition.

Credit: Julie Yarbrough

Credit: Julie Yarbrough

The class, composed of 13 students, examined Williams unique skill set as a visual artist who approaches her craft as a trained architect. Students also studied Williams' intentionality around using color palettes to discuss race.

The highlight of the course was a visit to her Chicago studio, where students received an intimate look at her creative process and learned how Williams' works like her daring “Color(ed) Theory” project fit into her personal life.

“It’s really important for our students to have the ability to not just go into a museum in their leisure time, or go to an opening, which is always fun,” says Dr. Finley, inaugural director of the AUC Art Collective, who teamed with Lowe to teach the class.

Credit: Julie Yarborough

Credit: Julie Yarborough

“This is a program that is focused upon teaching students about the museum, how to curate, tell stories, create narratives and work with artists. This is a leadership program training the future of leadership in museums and art culture. They have to have opportunities to cut their teeth but also to meet the people that can make a difference in their lives.”

Chlöe Catrow, a senior art major at Spelman, is already feeling the impact of the class.

“When I walked in [the gallery], I couldn’t believe it,” she says about seeing her words on the walls. “I am still taking it in. I never had my work displayed before. Not that I didn’t think it was a possibility, I just didn’t know it could happen this soon.”

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