not but nothing other
African-American Portrayals, 1930s to Today
“not but nothing other: African-American Portrayals, 1930s to Today” presents an array of depictions of and by Black Americans, providing a wide-ranging survey of how artists over the last ninety years have responded to the challenge of picturing African-American selfhood in paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and photographs. Key eras of creative production, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Civil Rights and Black Power era, as well as our present moment, are represented by artworks drawn from the holdings of prominent US public collections, along with works from the Binghamton University Art Museum. “not but nothing other” features some of the most significant artists of the last one hundred years, including pioneers such as Romare Bearden and Aaron Douglas, breakthrough figures of the 1970s such as Emma Amos and Barkley Hendricks and contemporary innovators such as Glenn Ligon and Kerry James Marshall. From portraits of artists and intellectuals to re-imaginings of historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, from realistic renderings to conceptual experiments, these works evidence the ongoing struggle to affirm Black identity within an America still marked by the history of segregation. Gathered together in this exhibition—the first time such an extensive of selection of artists of color has been shown at the Art Museum—they attest to the rich artistic legacies of self-representation bequeathed to the present by multiple generations of African-American creators.