The black experience illustrated in dual Memphis exhibitions

Rashid Johnson, "The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club"

Walk out the door of Power House Memphis and you can just glimpse the wreath on the balcony of the National Civil Rights Museum, which stands a mere 1,500 feet away.

This weekend, just in time for Black History Month, the two institutions unveil two cultural commentaries that effectively bookend the African-American experience.

Rashid Johnson, "The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club"

Photo by Library of Congress

A Library of Congress photo of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer is part of the "Freedom's Sisters" exhibit.

On Friday, "Freedom's Sisters," a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibits Service (SITES) and Cincinnati Museum Center, opens at the Civil Rights Museum.

The exhibit, a series of freestanding kiosks and interactive features, examines the transformative effect of African-American women, from historic figures like Harriet Tubman and Ida Wells, to more contemporary heroines such as Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King.

"They're women who represented different ways of fighting injustice, in different time periods," says SITES project director Katherine Krile. "You have Tubman, and then you have Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who integrated the University of Georgia. This exhibit presents African-American history through the stories of these amazing women. When you start to understand what these women really did, you don't know how it was possible. At the same time, to understand where we are today, where this country is, we have to know their stories."

New York-based journalist Sana Butler, author of "Sugar of the Crop: My Journey to Find the Children of Slaves" (The Lyons Press, $24.95), will be at the museum Feb. 7 to discuss her work on a project that began as a simple assignment for ABC's "World News Tonight" and evolved into a decadelong odyssey that changed her notions about black identity.

"I wanted to tell the story of how these former slaves became parents, because it's a story that can relate not only to the black community," Butler says. "When you come out of nothing, how do you raise beautiful children?"

Beginning with a firsthand account from then-101-year-old Walter Scott, a Virginia native whose father was born into slavery in 1838, she finds "a drive and determination, an almost immigrant mentality to better themselves, which is completely different than the identity formed with the post-civil rights movement."

"When I asked Walter Scott how his parents raised him, he eventually talked about how his mom wanted him to be big. She wanted her kids to be leaders and to get an education. She wasn't able to fulfill her dreams, so she translated them to her kids," Butler says, explaining that Walter's older brother, Otis, testified against the local school board in a desegregation lawsuit that would later become part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education.

Over at the Power House, Chicago-born conceptual artist Rashid Johnson taps into similarly transformative themes, using "The Dead Lecturer," a collection of poetry by LeRoi Jones -- who later became Amiri Baraka -- as his vehicle.

Using spirituality and his incredible vocabulary of literature and art as his guide, Johnson explores "being African, being black, and being American" via work like "Triple Consciousness," an octagon altar that holds three copies of Al Green's "Greatest Hits."

"W.E.B. DuBois' 'The Souls of Black Folk' was written prior to Afro-centrism, but I like his idea of double-consciousness, of the black and American dichotomy," says the 31-year-old Johnson, a rising star on the New York art scene.

Johnson's colossal altars, coated with America's Finest spray paint, are splashed with a bath of black soap and black wax, which create a monochromatic topography. These works were created onsite, laid flat on the Power House's basement floor, so that Johnson could spatter his lava with Jackson Pollack-like arcs. Once the art was hung, vases filled with living plants and small bowls of shea butter were installed on narrow shelves. Viewers can watch the process via a short film.

"I like to play with the ideas of the cosmic, mixed with issues of race," the artist says.

In work like "Green Belt," Johnson simultaneously defines and dismisses the ideals of the black identity, as set forth by the National Civil Rights Museum's "Freedom's Sisters" exhibit.

"Green Belt," which consists of an enlarged Polaroid snapshot of Johnson's father at 31, augmented with a halo of gold spray paint, shines a bright light on the dualities that compound life for many African-Americans.

The image of Jimmy Johnson kneeling, in his tae kwon do uniform, in front of a bookcase stocked with volumes such as the "I Ching" and "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," is, in the artist's eye, both poignant and humorous.

Independent curator Simon Watson, co-owner of Scenic, a New York company that organizes exhibitions by emerging artists, says, "Rashid, in my mind, is really doing something unique. He's a sculptor, a photographer, a painter, and all of those things overlap. He doesn't privilege one over another. There's also a certain whimsy and a delight in his work, in a context of who we are as Americans, particularly with an African-American as president."

While some art critics have tried to pigeonhole Johnson's work as "postblack," Watson dispels such notions.

"Sometimes the art world can be insufferable, and this is the perfect example," he says.

"'Postblack' -- (the term) doesn't illuminate, it confuses. We need to get back to real things, not false labels, and the real thing here is a young artist who's creating wonderful, illuminating, and funny work that says something about him and something about America at this moment."

Two Exhibitions

"Freedom's Sisters" opens Friday at the National Civil Rights Museum, 450 Mulberry and continues through April 5.

Sana Butler will discuss "Sugar of the Crop" at 12:30 p.m. Feb. 7 at the museum.

For a listing of other events, including genealogy workshops and a film series, call 521-9699 or go to CivilRightsMuseum.org.

"The Dead Lecturer: Laboratory, Dojo, and Performance Space," an exhibition of work by Rashid Johnson, opens with a reception from 2-5 p.m. Saturday at Power House Memphis, 45 G.E. Patterson. The show continues through March 27. For more information, go to PowerHouseMemphis.org.

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