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HAMBURGER BAHNHOF – CV OF THE ARTIST MUSEUM FÜR GEGENWART – BERLIN STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN Invalidenstraße 50-51 10557 Berlin Jack Whitten (1939-2018) PRESS CONFERENCE Wed 27.03.2019, 11 am 1939: Born on December 5 in Bessemer, Alabama. At this time, there is strict racial OPENING segregation in the southern states of the USA, a situation which Jack Whitten later Thu 28.03.2019, 7 pm described as "American apartheid". EXHIBITION 29.03. – 01.09.2019 1957: Enrols in Tuskegee Institute and majors in premedical studies, as well as be- ing an Air Force ROTC cadet. In the same year Whitten meets Dr Martin Luther King during the bus boycott in Montgomery.

1958: First trip to New York for summer work to finance his studies.

1959: Moves to in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to study art.

1960: Organizes a major civil rights march through downtown Baton Rouge to pro- test at the lack of financial support for Black colleges. The demonstrators are met PRESS CONTACT with hatred and violence from White counter-demonstrators. Because of this ex- EXHIBITION Dr. Katharina von Chlebowski perience, Whitten leaves the south and moves to New York. There he continue s his Verena Mühlegger education at School of Art where he studies with White students and TEL +49 30 26 39 488 0 professors for the first time. FAX +49 30 26 39 488 11 [email protected] www.freunde-der-nationalgalerie.de 1960-1964: First studio on the Lower East Side. Whitten meets Joe Overstreet, Bob Thompson, LeRoi Jones [Amiri Baraka], Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Willem de

PRESS CONTACT Kooning, Franz Kline and other figures from the art scene. He visits the Cedar Bar, STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN meeting place for Abstract Expressionists, and goes to jazz clubs. Generaldirektion Stauffenbergstraße 41 1962/63: First sculptures made of carved wood. 10785 Berlin

Mechtild Kronenberg Mid-1960s: Whitten describes his painterly approach as abstract-figurative expres- Press, Communication, Sponsorship sionism. In his he deals with questions of his own identity. TEL +49 30 266 42 34 01 FAX +49 30 266 42 34 09 [email protected] 1968: Married Mary Staikos. Meets the artists Melvin Edwards, William T. Williams, www.smb.museum/presse Al Loving, Daniel L. Johnson and Frank Bowling. The following year the six men exhibit together in the show Five + 1 at the Art Gallery at SUNY Stony Brook, NY. Fiona Geuss Press officer Nationalgalerie TEL +49 30 39 78 34 17 1969: First trip to Greece. Whitten would return to the Greek island of Crete every FAX +49 30 39 78 34 13 summer throughout his life to work on wood sculptures and carvings. [email protected] www.smb.museum/presse 1970: Whitten begins to make pictures instead of just them with a brush. His interest shifts into the processual and experimental. In his studio he builds The exhibition is made possible by the himself a large drawing board that lies on the floor. The canvas is attached to the Freunde der Nationalgalerie. top of this drawing board. The first painting on it is a so-called slab painting, in which Whitten draws a thin plate (slab) of acrylic paint with an Afro comb (later with a self-made squeegee) over the canvas.

1972: Birth of daughter Mirsini.

1973: The idea of a collage with elements of acrylic paint developes.

1974: Solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

1975: Curator Henry Geldzahler acquires the painting Delta Group II for the collec- tion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Three years later Kynaston McShine ac- quires Kappa, I for the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

27.03.2019 1980: For the first time in ten years, Whitten creates a picture standing upright. Page 2 / 2 1983: Solo exhibition Ten Years at The , New York.

1988: Begins work on the Black Monolith series with Black Monolith I (A Tribute to James Baldwin). The series includes works dedicated to Muhammad Ali, Ralph El- lison, , , W. E. B. Du Bois, Ornette Coleman, and HAMBURGER BAHNHOF – MUSEUM FÜR GEGENWART – BERLIN Maya Angelou among others. STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN Invalidenstraße 50-51 1992: Mosaic-like paintings constructed of acrylic tesserae are exhibited for the 10557 Berlin first time in an exhibition at Horodner Romley Gallery, New York. PRESS CONFERENCE Wed 27.03.2019, 11 am 1993: Trip to Poland for the exhibition My Home is Your Home at the Artists’ Mu- seum in Łódź where Whitten meets many international artists for the first time. OPENING Thu 28.03.2019, 7 pm 2001: First trip to Africa, including a powerful and influential visit to the Door of EXHIBITION No Return in Senegal. In the same year Whitten sees the World Trade Center fall, 29.03. – 01.09.2019 through the window of his studio including the tragic scenes of people jumping from the towers.

2003: Whitten relocates his studio to a former fire station in Queens.

2006: Finishes construction on the first painting built in the new studio, 9.11.01, dedicated to the people who died in the Twin Towers.

2014/15: The retrospective exhibition Jack Whitten: Five Decades of Painting, takes

PRESS CONTACT place at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the in EXHIBITION Minneapolis, and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Katharina von Chlebowski Verena Mühlegger 2016: Awarded the for 2015 by President . TEL +49 30 26 39 488 0 FAX +49 30 26 39 488 11 [email protected] 2017: Completes the final painting of the Black Monolith series dedicated to Chuck www.freunde-der-nationalgalerie.de Berry, Black Monolith XI: Six Kinky Strings: For Chuck Berry. Finishes work on his

last painting Quantum Wall, VIII (For Arshile Gorky, My First Love in Painting). PRESS CONTACT STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN 2018: On January 20, 2018 Jack Whitten dies at the age of seventy-eight. In April Generaldirektion the exhibition Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2017 opens at The Baltimore Stauffenbergstraße 41 10785 Berlin Museum of Art and later at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Mechtild Kronenberg Press, Communication, Sponsorship TEL +49 30 266 42 34 01 FAX +49 30 266 42 34 09 [email protected] www.smb.museum/presse

Fiona Geuss Press officer Nationalgalerie TEL +49 30 39 78 34 17 FAX +49 30 39 78 34 13 [email protected] www.smb.museum/presse

The exhibition is made possible by the Freunde der Nationalgalerie.