Great Force

History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.

—James Baldwin “The White Man’s Guilt.” Ebony Magazine, 1965

Great Force addresses the force of whiteness, the counter-force of black resistance, and the persistence of the color line in the United States. With new commissions and recent work by twenty-four artists, the exhibition presents painting, sculpture, photography, video, and performance that examine race in the United States. The exhibition extends from the first floor Beverly Reynolds Gallery and Royall Forum to the ICA’s second floor galleries, and includes offsite works, performances, and public programs.

Exhibiting artists:
Radcliffe Bailey, Benae Beamon, Kevin Beasley, Alexandra Bell, Paul Stephen Benjamin, Sedrick Chisom, Tony Cokes, Bethany Collins, Aria Dean, Tomashi Jackson, Richard Kennedy, Pope.L, Charlotte Lagarde, Glenn Ligon, Mores McWreath, Troy Michie, Shani Peters, Robert Pruitt, John Lucas & Claudia Rankine, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Xaviera Simmons, Sable Elyse Smith, Carrie Mae Weems, and The Racial Imaginary Institute

Great Force is curated by Amber Esseiva and organized by the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

THE COLOR LINE

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writers and reformers such as Frederick Douglass and W.E.B Du Bois used the term ‘the color line’ to describe racial division and oppression in the United States and beyond. The color line describes this boundary, built by racism and protected by pseudo-science, the criminal code, segregation, and violence. History, designed and narrated in this way, privileges whiteness as the measure of humanity and in doing so inhibits the development of the American subject. Throughout this exhibition and accompanying publication, the color line provides us with a historical, conceptual, and visual boundary to push against America’s dominant narratives.

RICHMOND 2019 

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first recorded arrival of enslaved Africans to Hampton, Virginia in 1619. Richmond was the site of one of the largest slave auction markets in the United States, and continues to be haunted by that fact. This city was also the capital of the Confederate States of America which fought the United States to defend slavery. Monuments to the Confederacy still surround us. These realities allow for this place to become a locus for critical conversations around race relations. While this exhibition concerns itself primarily with the color line that has separated black from white, it must be noted that many other groups were and continue to be brutalized by America’s color line. 

THE COUNTER FORCE

The works included in this exhibition foreground acts of resistance. Rather than offering explicit images of pain and subjugation or white domination, they use material and language to make apparent the cycles of history in the grip of white supremacy. In artmaking, when we demand artists of color rehearse radicality with images of pain and subjugation, we neglect both the precarity and the heterogeneity of their lived experiences.

The artists and literary thinkers included in Great Force show us that culture is always in communication with both past and present, propelled by a desire for change and revision. Together, we must set aside the racial binaries defined by the color line and dismantle the structural supremacy that whiteness has constructed for itself—a task that demands a collective reimagining and reorganizing of American identity.

Great Force is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication edited by curator Amber Esseiva, who also contributes an overview essay as well as texts on each artist. Essays by Frederick Douglass and James Baldwin accompany W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1900 hand-drawn data visualization infographics. Excerpts from Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People make evident that the mould of the American citizen was constructed under the pressure of white domination. Contributions by Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Racial Imaginary Institute, and Rebecca Walker theorize the ongoing effects of racial tensions in the midst of the current war on terror and the resurgence of white nationalism marked by the Obama and Trump administrations. 

The publication is designed by Silas Munro and Brian Johnson, native Virginians who run the bi-coastal studio poly-mode. Taking design inspiration from W.E.B. Du Bois’s migration maps and charts. The book is set in William, a newly developed Du Boisian inspired typeface created by Tré Seals of Vocal Type. 

The publication will be available for purchase at the ICA Shop; stay tuned for more information about the launch date. For purchase inquiries, please contact icashop@vcu.edu.