A Member’s Field Guide to Jack Whitten: The Messenger
This retrospective is a revelation: the first to span all six decades and every medium of Whitten’s innovative practice, presenting the artist’s dazzling paintings, sculptures, and drawings; and his exploration of race, technology, jazz, love, and war from the 1960s through to the present. Delve into his groundbreaking career through words, images, video, and more.
Jack Whitten created visionary beauty from righteous anger. Born in Bessemer, Alabama, amid the violence of the segregated South, he joined the Civil Rights Movement before moving to New York in 1960, where he committed himself to being an artist. Through his exploration of materials and tools—from new paints to Afro-combs and electrostatic printing—Whitten invented art-making techniques that were the first of their kind. His work, shaped by a deep engagement with racial injustice and rapid technological change, made art matter in a world in turmoil.
“Experimentation is the key,” Whitten wrote in 2012. “I believe that there are sounds we have not heard. I believe that there are colors we have not seen. And I believe that there are feelings yet to be felt.”
