Acts of Art: Uptown Exhibit Revisits Pioneering Downtown Gallery

By Phyllis Eckhaus

VEVE VODOU III (1963) by Loïs Mailou Jones. Oil on canvas, 37×453/4 in. ©Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël Trust. Courtesy of Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël Trust, Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

“Every movement in American art” started in Greenwich Village, Nigel Jackson asserted.

So in 1969, when the Chelsea-based Black painter launched Acts of Art — a pioneering commercial gallery created by and for Black artists in downtown Manhattan — he and his artist wife Patricia Grey, did so not in Harlem, but in the Village.

“It’s better for an educational setting,” he declared.

Acts of Art in Greenwich Village—at the Hunter College Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery through March 22nd—pays homage to Jackson’s six year efforts with a small gem of an exhibit, visually and emotionally compelling.

It features powerful work from 14 Black artists who exhibited at the gallery, artists both known and lesser known.

These works pack a punch, cumulatively conveying the uphill battle talented artists of color continue to confront.

Take the two works by Dindga McCannon. Pat is Pregnant (1977) blew me away—in this vivid paint and mixed media, collage-like work, a relaxed and very pregnant Black woman lounges, eyes closed and cigarette in hand, on a throne-like deep green upholstered chair. It must be a hot night as her brief swath of a bright orange dress is hitched up around her hips and belly. She is surrounded by lush plants and symbols of nature. A glimpse of a huge silver moon in a cobalt sky, echoing her own spheric shape, is visible in the window above her.

The Pat of the picture is McCannon’s friend, photographer Pat Davis, and it’s no surprise to learn they were close collaborators in the first Black women’s professional arts collective, Where We At, which McCannon co-founded. The portrait’s intimacy, affection, and unflinching embrace of female experience thrilled me.

AFRODESIA AT THREE (1970’s) by Dindga McCannon. Acryliconcanvas, 35x24in. ©Dindga MxcCannon. Courtesy of the artist and Fridman Gallery, New York.

And I was moved by Afrodesia at Three (1979), McCannon’s portrait of her daughter as a dignified autonomous tiny person—albeit one decked out in fabulous blue Afrocentric patterned headwrap and togs. McCannon actually owned an East Village store named after her daughter—the Afrodesia Mod Shop—from 1967 to 1970, where the artist sold clothes of her own design, made from African and African-inspired prints. Afrodesia, standing on a platform, is set against a bold almost abstract background featuring a huge silver moon in front of a navy sky and shadowy fuschia landscape—she appears almost as a small deity.

Other works are equally evocative.

There is Ann Tanksley’s dreamy and surreal Retribution (1974), with a bearded Black Jonah swimming within the belly of a whale, the whites of his wide eyes as bright as the whalebone beneath him.

There are Frank Wimberley’s two untitled collages from 1971 and 1977, each composed of layers of roughly torn colored papers and paint. They have the depth, richness, and improvisational quality of jazz—which he performed while a student at Howard University in 1945, and about which he remained passionate. Miles Davis was a fan of Wimberley’s work, collecting his collage, sculpture and pottery.

There is Loïs Mailou Jones’ multimedia painting, Veve Vodou III (1963), which can be appreciated for its vibrant color and composition—and as well as for Jones’ deep scholarly dive into Vodou. Jones curated a 1974 exhibit at Acts of Art, Caribbean and Afro-American Women Artists. Trained in the 1930s, Jones hoped the Haitian culture and art that inspired her and informed her artistic identity would do the same for a younger generation of Black artists.

That passion for excavating and sharing Black history also illuminates Reginald Gammon’s Bon Bon Buddies (1973), a vividly fluorescent painting, updating a 1900-era publicity photo of Bert Williams and George Walker, the first Black recording artists in the United States, and the first to star in a full-length Broadway musical written and performed by Black creators. The luminous top-hatted pair are proud, posh and at ease in the world.

There are three exceptional works by Benny Andrews. Inmate (1964) is a wrenching stark collage of a prisoner whose face is obscured by the large sharp edged cup his hands are holding up against it, in desperate unsated hunger. Corner Man (1970) and Mother of the World (1970) are pen and ink drawings that conjure—with exquisite economy and empathetic respect—a street corner speaker and a worn, deeply-dignified matron.

Other artists in this meticulously curated show are James Denmark, Harlan Jackson, Nigel Jackson, Ben Jones, Enid Richardson Moore, Ademola Olugebefola, Lloyd Toone, and Hale Woodruff. Each work is thoughtfully explicated and placed in context.

Indeed, the exhibit is a triumph of archival research, as Acts of Art left no records and was only occasionally covered by mainstream, arts, and Black media.

A timeline of the gallery’s lifespan takes up much of the exhibit. Featuring exhibit posters and quotes from artists and critics, it documents both Acts of Arts’ influence and constant struggle for recognition and respect.

ARGENIS APOLINARIO HUNTER Acts of Art Installs. Photo courtesy of Hunter College Art Galleries.

Begun in a small storefront at 31 Bedford Street, in 1971 the gallery moved to a larger space at 15 Charles Street. 1971 was a banner year for Acts of Art. That was the year the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, a group of Black artist/activists protesting their exclusion from top museums, targeted the Whitney. The Whitney held its controversial Contemporary Black Artists in America exhibition—and Acts of Art simultaneously hosted the Rebuttal to Whitney Museum exhibition, showcasing artists the Whitney had ignored. Comparing the two shows, Nigel Jackson declared, “I’m showing the real stuff and they’re showing a watered down standard.”

In 1971, the gallery also hosted the first exhibition of Where We At, the pioneering Black women artists collective.

The venue’s commitment to Black artists extended beyond the visual, hosting evenings with musicians such as Hugh Masakela and poets such as Sonia Sanchez and Bruce Wright, the latter best known as a judge who was an outspoken critic of racism in the criminal justice system.

The exhibit is accompanied by a full-color catalogue, which includes essays on each of Acts of Art’s major exhibitions.