I am so excited to see two Black woman artists in different disciplines, whose work I dig, collaborate in such a deeply engaged way. From this brief conversation, it is clear that they have been invested in each other’s work for quite some time.
To be honest, after listening to this talk, I am hesitant to even use the “ekphrastic” to describe this collaboration, because it is not only a response but more like a conversation, an exchange…I don’t mean to suggest that ekphrasis is normally only a response, but I think (even though I have not yet seen the work ) I do think that both Mehretu and Lewis from inception sought to make something other than just “a response.”
The intensity and intentionality of this collaboration reminds of another collaboration between poet Douglas Kearney and the late artist Terry Adkins that never got to be fully realized as initially conceived.
After Adkins’ death, Kearney continued to engage with Adkins work as a tribute to him. Kearney’s offering became another piece, Freedom of Shadow, he described as “an oratorio for voice and digital turntables.(the title a flip or a monograph, Shadow of Freedom, which Adkins under his alter-ego Blanche Bruce, published right before his death. Here are some notes Kearney wrote in an attempt to articulate the work he and Adkins had begun and envisioned.
Kearney also collaborated with musician Val Jeanty on a tribute to Terry Adkins, centering Adkins’s work as the driving force of improvisatory work.
I am fascinated by these collaborations between Black artists and poets. These 2 poets in particular are excellent examples because they are such caring and thorough thinkers so the end result ends up being a work that I think can operate on many different levels…perhaps even as a “critical text” or perhaps a re-imaging of what a critical text could be.
This re-imaging between Black poets and artists, of various disciplines, is at the heart of what I hope to continue to deal with here Black Ekphrastic. I want “us” to continue developing at “a Black gaze” (see Dr. Tina Compt’s latest here) , or to use the phrasing of Dr. Greg Carr’s Africana Studies Framework, a Governance gaze.
You can read more about Douglas Kearney’s engagements with Terry Adkins’s work:
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
&
Here