My life has been an epic adventure. —Jack Whitten

Odyssey tells the incredible story of Jack Whitten’s life. room features early works that Whitten made in New York He traveled across the world, from Alabama to Crete; and kept in his studio there. In the following galleries, we he traveled through time, from the present to the ancient see the works he made in Crete in the decades after 1969, past and into the future. Whitten’s sculptures describe when he began spending summers on the island. He found this journey, and although he is widely recognized for his inspiration and common ground in objects from diverse achievements as an experimental painter, the sculptures African traditions and those of ancient Aegean cultures; are shared for the first time here. Odyssey includes examples of these objects, chosen by At the height of the the artist Whitten. In the final room of the exhibition, a series of came to New York, where he visited museums exhibiting unfolds the relation between his sculpture and African art. He began carving wood to understand what he his practice, in technique and in spirit. saw: aesthetically, to feed his paintings, and culturally, in Jack Whitten’s legacy is his specific worldview: a cosmic terms of his identity as a Black American. He wrote, “The vision seen from the intersection of the African diaspora, African pieces speak to me directly. I feel their presence + I New York painting, the American South, European art can see their use value for me today.” The exhibition’s first history, and the global technological present.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The , Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Intro wall/intro text, page 1 of 1 Gallery 1 :

Ancestral Totem Over ten feet tall, this sculpture is made up of abstracted faces that 1968 form a kind of family tree and give visual expression to Whitten’s desire Birch wood to connect with his own ancestral lineage. He became interested in representing family history as a column of stacked interlocking figures after seeing a Haida totem pole from the Pacific Northwest at the Brooklyn Museum. The faces’ exaggerated features also relate, in a general way, to the forms of African sculpture. The head of a llama sits at the top, a symbol of intelligence and a self-portrait of the artist. The pole continues upward in a gesture toward the future, making space for generations to come.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 1 of 31 Jug Head I and Jug Head II 1965 2 Black-stained American elm with black-shoe-polish patina

Whitten synthesized multiple references and traditions in these powerful heads, some of his first forays into sculpture. They pay tribute Whitten structured his time in the studio to 19th-century ceramic “face jugs,” the earliest through discipline and ritual, as well as free of which were created by enslaved potters experimentation. He maintained daily log books exercising a rare opportunity to express over the course of his long career, documenting themselves. Some scholars believe that the form his work and more metaphysical inquiries, as and functions of the face jugs had origins in well as some of the rhythm of daily life. Nearby central African cultures. Whitten applied layers cases feature pages from those log books and of black shoe polish to the heads, recalling his a selection of the tools Whitten used to make childhood in Alabama when adults emphasized his sculptures and his paintings. The artist’s silver polished shoes and proper self-presentation shoes occupy a case of their own. Whitten saw as a matter of style and pride. He continued art-making and life as intimately interconnected to polish these works over the years, adding processes, sustained by conscious habits of care. a fresh layer in preparation for this exhibition. Much as Whitten continued to apply black shoe polish to the surfaces of his Jug Heads—as many as twenty coats a year by his count—he polished his own sneakers with regular applications of Unidentified silver spray paint. African-American Artist from Bath, South Carolina. Face vessel. c. 1860–1870. Glazed stoneware and unglazed earthenware. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Edward Russell Jones

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 2 of 31 Homage To Malcolm In the summer following the assassination of Civil The pan-African inspiration for this work can 1965 Rights leader Malcolm X (1925–1965), Whitten sculpted be found in Malcolm X’s life and his advocacy of Black Partly stained American a work that merged disparate African visual traditions Nationalism. When Whitten first encountered African 3 elm, coiled wire, nails, and proclaimed an allegiance to both Africa and the art in museums he saw sculptures like and mixed media larger Black world. Nails allude to iron blades that coat the N’Gonzon Koun (Female Antelope Headdress) on view the bodies of central African minkisi minkondi (power nearby, which displays many of the formal features figures). The sweeping, asymmetrical composition was found in Homage To Malcolm. influenced in part by west African headdresses.

Unidentified Bamana Artist Lovers N’Gonzon Koun 1963–1964 John Lennon Altarpiece (Female Antelope Headdress) Black-stained American elm 1968 Early 20th century with black-shoe-polish patina Koulikoro region, Mali American white oak and mixed media, Wood, iron, and fiber including brown organic rice

The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Alan Wurtzburger, BMA 1954.145.1

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 3 of 31 Gallery 2:

Unidentified Luluwa Artist In Luluwa society, sculptures like this female figure were Bwanga bwa Bwimpe created to protect women and children. Her muscular limbs, (Female Figure of the Bwimpe society) erect posture, and determined face appear profoundly 1920–1939 contemporary, recalling the strength and poise of women we Kasaï province, Democratic Republic of Congo know today. Whitten admired Luluwa figures not only for their Wood formal, geometric qualities, but also for the range of functions they perform. It was this sense of agency—this capacity to The Baltimore Museum of Art: effect change in the world—that Whitten would increasingly Gift of Alan Wurtzburger, BMA 1954.145.83 seek to draw out of his own materials and sculptures.

Goulandris Master 4,500 years ago, on an island in the southwestern Aegean Sea, an artist Cycladic Female Figure known to history as the Goulandris Master carved this abstracted female c. 2500–2400 BCE form from a block of marble. One of fifty such sculptures in existence, Cyclades, Greece this compact figure radiates grace and self-possession. Like the Luluwa Marble figure beside her, this artwork resonates with concerns of modern sculpture, especially in its abstracted face, elemental geometry, and The Walters Art Museum, attention to the materiality of the marble from which it is made. For Baltimore, 23.253 Whitten, these commonalities pointed to the universality and unity of humanity across time.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 4 of 31 Sphinx Whitten created Sphinx during a moment in the Civil Rights movement 1966–1967 when ideas about the connection of Black people to the African continent Butternut wood were gaining renewed currency. In Afrocentric thought, the achievements of the ancient Egyptians belong to Black history. Whitten extended this idea to incorporate the ancient Aegean world. Sphinx’s hybrid form—sinuous above and sturdy below—references both the Great Sphinx of Giza, with its human head and lion’s body, and the sphinx of Greek mythology, which also has a bird’s wings and sometimes a serpent’s tail. Like these monsters of the ancient world, Whitten’s Sphinx is a creature of mystery.

The Heart of Humanity The smooth circular form at the top of this sculpture recalls 1972–1973 the disk-like heads of Asante Akua’mma (fertility figures) from Black mulberry Ghana. At the core of the work is a rounded form within Unidentified Asante Artist. a compartment comprised of interlocking pyramids that create Fertility Figure: Female a protective chamber, like a human heart within a ribcage. (Akua Ba). 19th–20th century. To bring about this effect, Whitten skillfully removed wood Ghana. Wood, beads, and string. from the interior of the log without disturbing the surface. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Through this “internal carving” he represented the locus Memorial Collection, Bequest of human goodness—the heart of our humanity. of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.75)

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 5 of 31 Kritiko Spiti (Cretan House) Kritiko Spiti means “Cretan house” in Greek. This sculpture’s leaning 1974–1975 form bridges the space between floor and wall, with six stacked segments. Cretan walnut and ceramic figure An arcing wedge grows into a long, bowed form. On top sits a thin platform, a trapezoidal shelf, a skewed arch, and finally a broad block that looks like an overhanging roof. A ceramic girl in a ruffled pink dress rests snugly under the arch. This single, delicate found object is unusual in Whitten’s body of sculpture. Cretans traditionally distribute such figurines as party favors at weddings and baptisms.Kritiko Spiti alludes to family life and the ceremonies that knit society together.

Scorpion Diavolaki (Little Devil) 1975 1975–1976 White mulberry White mulberry

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 6 of 31 Anthropos #1 (Humankind #1) Anthropos #2 (Humankind #2) Anthropos #3 (Humankind #3) 1972 1973 1973–1974 4 Black and white mulberry, wild olive Black mulberry Black mulberry wood, linen twine, and wire

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 7 of 31 The Guardian I, For Mary The rounded, gentle forms of this sculpture, dedicated to Whitten’s 1983 wife Mary, radiate energy, and its upturned face engages us directly. Black mulberry, Mary’s hair, The shallow, glass-faced compartment at the top of the sculpture mixed media, and window glass holds items charged with memories and emotions related to Mary, including locks of her hair, a bus ticket, and an admission ticket Private Collection to a Cretan museum. It also contains bones, wild sage, and olive leaves gathered from a local field. Below the compartment is Jack and Mary Whitten a closed door with a tiny round handle. What is behind the in the harbor, Agia door remains unseen and, for that reason, all the more potent. Galini, Crete, 1971

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 8 of 31 The Guardian II, For Mirsini The Guardian III, For Jack 1984 1986 Black mulberry and wax 5 Black mulberry and nylon fishing line Collection of Mirsini Amidon

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 9 of 31 Master of Ntem Perched atop a reliquary basket, this muscular Fang figure Bieri (Reliquary Guardian Figure) would have guarded the bones of important ancestors— 1750–1860 individuals whose accomplishments in life were thought Woleu-Ntem province, Gabon to give them power and authority in death. The sculpture Wood, iron, and copper has the strong shoulders, arms, and thighs of a mature man, as well as the shortened limbs and softly swelling forehead The Baltimore Museum of Art: of an infant. This visual merging of youth and age mirrors Gift of Alan Wurtzburger, BMA 1954.145.61 historic Fang beliefs in the continuity between life and death.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 10 of 31 Gallery 3:

Homage to the Kri-Kri Unidentified Minoan Artist Unidentified Mau or Worodugu Artist 1985 Rhyton in the Form of a Bull’s Head Kòmasu (Male Mask of the Kòma Society) Black mulberry, nails, and mixed media c. 16th century BCE or early 20th century Late 19th–early 20th century Aegean Islands Touba department, Ivory Coast or Kankan Black steatite region, Guinea Wood, goat and sheep horns, fiber, earth, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 23.194 encrustation, iron, and copper

The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Nancy and Robert H. Nooter, Washington, D.C., BMA 1985.281

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 11 of 31 Unidentified Mycenaean Artist In the Aegean, life is tied to the sea, to the schooling of fish, the ebb and Stemmed Kylix with Cuttlefish flow of the tide, and the intimate relationship between humans and the 14th century BCE aquatic environment. In this respect, the life led by the people of the Bronze Octopus mosaic made by Mycenae, Greece Age Mycenaean civilization came close to Whitten’s modern experience Whitten in the courtyard Ceramic of Crete. His sculptures reflect a deep engagement with the watery world of the family house in that surrounded him. Like this goblet—which features a cuttlefish unfurling Agia Galini, early 2000s. Design based on a The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 48.211 its tentacles in a clever rhyme with its looping handles—Whitten’s work Minoan pot in the emphasizes lively, organic forms. Whitten also used ink from the cuttlefish Archaeological Museum, and octopus that he caught as a material in his paintings. Heraklion, Crete

Reliquary For Orfos Behind the oval glass of a diver’s mask, cradled in a shallow Pregnant Owl 1978 compartment painted blue to suggest the Aegean Sea, sit 1983–1984 Black mulberry, bones from orfos pieces of a spear gun and the skull of an orfos fish. Sun-bleached Olive wood, black mulberry, ebony, fish, copper wire, metal spearpoint fish bones fill the case at the sculpture’s base. Whitten was 8 bones, spark plug, and mixed media with speargun, rubber, metal tacks, passionate about diving and fishing in the sea near his home diving-mask glass, and window glass in Crete and seeing the sea through a diver’s mask expanded Collection of Mirsini Amidon his experience of nature. Here, he draws on west African and Christian belief systems about reliquaries to honor the orfos Whitten with an orfos and its endangered ecosystem. he caught, Crete, 1977

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 12 of 31 Unidentified Kongo Artist Nkisi Nkondi (Power Figure) 19th century Democratic Republic of Congo Wood, iron, mirrored glass, earth, encrustation, and fiber

The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Alan Wurtzburger, BMA 1954.145.66

The Afro American Thunderbolt Whitten created The Afro American Thunderbolt for the protection and empowerment 1983–1984 of all Black people. He drew on African and Greek cultural forms to assert this singular 6 Black mulberry, copper plate, expression of Black power. Embedded nails consciously evoke the function, as well as the and nails appearance, of works such as the nearby nkisi nkondi. Sculpted by central African artists in the 19th and 20th centuries, such figures were believed to contain a spiritual force. If pricked by a nail or iron blade, this energy would be released into the world to right wrongs and pursue evildoers. The angular blocks of Whitten’s sculpture also suggest a thunderbolt—divine weapon of the Greek god Zeus. Like the spear that this nkisi figure once held aloft, Whitten’s sculpture is conceived as a weapon of social justice.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 13 of 31 Mirsini’s Doll c. 1975 7 Cretan walnut and black mulberry Collection of Mirsini Amidon

Jack and Mirsini Whitten, Agia Galini, 1974

The Wedding Bosom, For Aunt Surlina The Saddle 2006 1985 1977 Wild cypress, black Mozambique Black mulberry, cherrywood, Cretan walnut, black mulberry, marble, mixed media, and metal metal, and mixed media and mixed media

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 14 of 31 Unidentified Kongo Artist Like the surface of water, mirrors affixed to Kongo power figures shimmer with Nkisi (Power Figure) light and signify the point at which the world of the living meets that of the dead. Early 20th century In the 19th and 20th centuries, Kongo men and women appealed to the forces in Democratic Republic of Congo these figures for assistance and protection. A recent x-ray indicates that thisnkisi Wood, glass, fibers, earth, was likely de-activated, its most potent power substances removed, prior to its sale. and encrustation The power and presence of these sculptures—felt even by non-believers—is one reason Whitten and other Black artists of his generation looked to them for The Baltimore Museum of Art: inspiration. Indeed, the plant matter found in Whitten’s work directly reference Gift of Alan Wurtzburger, BMA 1954.145.67 the organic substances (bilongo) inserted into the hollows of Kongo minkisi.

Bogunjoko Fakeye The voluminous, crested hairstyle of these twoIbeji (twin figures) Ibeji (Twin Figures) symbolizes status and beauty in the Yorùbá region of southwestern Nigeria. Early 20th century In the past, men and women believed that the head (orí) was lord of the Ila-Orangum city, Nigeria body and the seat of personality. Olódùmarè, the supreme god in Yorùbá Wood, Rickett’s laundry bluing, religion, was thought to breathe life into each person through their head. and encrustation As a result, much attention was paid to dressing the head and making it appear larger. Whitten was fascinated by this crest form, which is found The Baltimore Museum of Art: throughout west African figurative sculpture. Its presence inspired the blade Gift of Nance Asher, Denton, Maryland, forms that appear throughout his work. BMA 1988.65.1 and 1988.65.2

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 15 of 31 Phoenix for the Youth of Greece 1983 Black mulberry, olive wood, bone, glass, and handwritten text on paper

Whitten created this sculpture as a reminder of Greece’s abiding wealth—its rich cultural history and its abundant natural setting—at a moment of grim economic outlook for the country. A symbol of courage for the nation’s young people, its title refers to the mythical bird that self-combusts and is reborn from its own ashes, a sign of regeneration and hope for the future. Four olive branches, traditional gifts of the Greek goddess Athena, rise like flames. A cluster of gleaming animal bones hangs beneath a crumbled, torn, and burnt paper preserved beneath glass. Handwritten in Greek is a cryptic, almost spiritual phrase: “Using the bones from the past, we can understand the present and foresee the future.”

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 16 of 31 Lichnos Thelichnos , an aggressive fish with poisonous spines, is an ingredient in 2008 traditional Greek fisherman’s stew. Whitten captures the menacing quality 9 Black mulberry, carob wood, of the lichnos through the flame-like mulberry form at the top and the fire- mixed media, and whitewashed damaged carob wood, which bristles with glass, bone, and metal. Carob wood cinder block is tough and stringy, as challenging to carve as the lichnos is difficult to catch.

The copper mending plate reinforces a fragile point in the object. Whitten associated mending plates with African sculpture and with his youth in Alabama, “where people are doing mending, never throwing anything away.”

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 17 of 31 The Tomb of Socrates Gray Matter Shark Bait 2009 2010 2016 Wild cypress, black mulberry, marble, Black mulberry, Gortynis marble, Black mulberry, marble, iroko, brass, and mixed media and Gorilla Glue with sawdust and acrylic

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 18 of 31 Pluto Pluto—Roman god of the underworld—is Next to Pluto perches a leather hood on a stand. 2013 represented by smooth and rough wood When the sculpture travels, the marble is Black mulberry, lead, marble, separated by an element made from molten lead removed and the hood is placed over the wood. 10 Serbian oak, and metal, with a hood that evokes the god’s subterranean realm. Cool Like the hoods used in falconry to calm the of leather and mixed media with metal marble cuts through the figure, echoing the birds by covering their eyes, this ritual of care crested hairstyle that appears in west African vividly speaks to Whitten’s sense that his art, like the Ibeji (twin figures) on view nearby. sculptures are animate.

Memory Container Memory Container commemorates an entire community in and around the 1972–1973 village of Agia Galini. In the oval frame, facing the viewer, the Greek god Black mulberry, fish bones, seashells, Apollo (printed on a crumpled banknote) gazes out from behind layers of linen twine, and mixed media plant matter and animal bones. The rectangular frame, facing away from us, presents fading snapshots wreathed in dried olive leaves and bone. Whitten’s wife, Mary, and daughter, Mirsini, are pictured, as well as close Stamatina Troullinos (wearing glasses), with family and friends in friends. The flora and fauna evoke meals shared and the land and sea upon Agia Galini. The Troullinos family which Agia Galini depends. Memory Container is a repository for fleeting owned the tree Whitten carved moments, one that becomes ever more affecting with the passage of time. during his first visit to Crete.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 19 of 31 Gallery 4:

Unidentified Minoan Artist Quantum Man (The Sixth Portal) Snake Goddess 2016 c. 16th century BCE or early 20th century Marble, Cretan walnut, Serbian oak, Aegean Islands lead, acrylic, and mixed media Black steatite

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 23.196

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 20 of 31 The Apollonian Sword To make this sculpture, Whitten worked a black mulberry log, scoring 2014 it with a chainsaw, drilling into it, and lighting it on fire. He fastened the 11 Marble, metal, lead, heavy marble to the mulberry with a single metal pin and poured molten and charred black lead into the jagged interior surfaces, where it formed a dramatic silver mulberry wood pattern as it cooled. This process was used in the construction of ancient Greek temples, including the Parthenon, to secure columns within their bases. Whitten’s alternately measured and unbridled approach embodied the dual principles of the Apollonian and the Dionysian—the disciplined versus the passionate sides of human nature.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 21 of 31 Geraki (Hawk) Aphrodite’s Lover 2014 2015 Technological Totem Pole Black mulberry, Serbian oak, Marble, lead, and cherrywood 2013 iroko, marble, and copper wire 14 Black mulberry, mixed media, metal, Gortynis marble, and Braun alarm clock

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 22 of 31 Bush Woman Sensual and undulating, Bush Woman’s curves bristle with rust-colored, metal wires 1974–1975 that resemble coarse hair and produce sound when plucked. The title is a double Black mulberry and wire entendre, alluding to the wilderness and also to pubic hair and proposing a parallel 12 between the natural landscape and female sexuality. Its shape echoes the rounded bodies and pinched waists of ancient Cretan Snake Goddess sculptures such as this one, whose bared breasts and confident, erect posture recalls female-snake sculptures unearthed in the temple repositories of Knossos. Like many works of ancient art, the precise meaning of these symbols cannot be reconstructed with absolute certainty. For Whitten, Snake Goddess figures radiated female power and sexuality.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 23 of 31 Unidentified Artist Nearly 100 years ago, this worn and weathered figure was Male Figure unearthed by a miner working in the west African country 1190–1394 of Sierra Leone. Preserved under 20 feet of earth, scientific Yafe Sefawe village, Eastern Province, testing later revealed it to be between 600 and 700 years old. Sierra Leone Although little is known about its use or creator, it is one Wood of the oldest known African artworks in the United States. Like Cycladic figures from Crete, this is an object that calls The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Elliott and out across time and space, reminding us of our shared Marcia Harris, Pikesville, Maryland, BMA 1991.85 humanity and of those who came before us.

Unidentified Beembe Artist In the late-19th century—amidst the upheaval caused by Belgian colonization— Male Figure a prominent man from eastern Congo commissioned this small portrait figure. Late 19th century On it are sculpted signs of this unique historical moment. The gun, an import Sud-Kivu Province, Democratic from Europe, symbolizes his status as a contemporary man of means while the Republic of Congo scarification patterns on his torso demonstrate his allegiance to traditional Beembe Wood, porcelain, and raffia ways of life. Whitten was interested in this merging of the ancestral and the modern. He saw African scarification practices, which signal social status through permanent The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss marks on the skin, as a kind of information-bearing system, not unlike the circuit Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland, BMA 1950.387 boards and disk drives, seen on his nearby Technological Totem Pole.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 24 of 31 Lucy This sculpture was inspired by the 3.18 million-year-old, fossilized 2011 skeleton that scientists discovered in Ethiopia in 1974 and nicknamed Black mulberry, mixed media, “Lucy” for the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” In 2011, Phaistos stone, mahogany, and Whitten revisited a sculpture he had carved in the 1970s, adding new metal I-beam strata: a white stone base from the site of an ancient Minoan palace in Phaistos, Crete; a mahogany block from the African continent; a steel I-beam produced by modern industrial towns, like Whitten’s hometown, Bessemer, Alabama; and an emerald-green circuit board. Together, they suggest Whitten’s process of imaginative time travel.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 25 of 31 The Death of Fishing Whitten grew up hunting and fishing in his native Alabama and later 2007 spent his summers spear fishing in the Aegean Sea.The Death of Fishing 13 Black mulberry and is his elegy to the declining fishing industry of the seaside village of mixed media Agia Galini. The sculpture, which Whitten described as “an effigy, like lynching, really,” hangs in space on fishing wire, variously resembling a seedpod, fishing lure, boat, or body. He carved this sculpture with a rasp and filled its cavity with his own fishing paraphernalia—nets, handmade lures, hooks, wire, and bones from local fish.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 26 of 31 May Gallery:

Black Monolith I Atopolis: For Édouard Glissant (A Tribute To James Baldwin) 2014 15 1988 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland the generosity of Sid R. Bass, Lonti Ebers, Agnes Gund, Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, Jerry Speyer and Katherine Farley, and Daniel and Brett This first composition in the series contains a Sundheim, 2017 highly textured area shaped like the head of the writer the work honors. James Baldwin (1924– Whitten crafted this stunning tribute to Édouard 1987), Whitten recalled, “had an enormous head Glissant (1928–2011)—poet, novelist, essayist, placed monolithically atop a small, dense, tight and philosopher—out of thousands of tiles of body.” The American novelist and social critic paint made by hand. Born in Martinique and was profoundly influential for other writers and educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, Glissant was artists and occupied a prominent role in the a vocal critic of racism, , and colonialism. Civil Rights movement. Whitten read his books He wrote incisively about créolisation, or the mixing and met him several times, encounters that he of cultures, a phenomenon unleashed by the forced described as filling a “big gap”: “He was the only dislocation of Africans during the period of the black who was putting into words the feelings slave trade. The titleAtopolis is a composite word that I had about how we react to this system of two seemingly incompatible Greek terms: we are born into.” Whitten also paid tribute “atopos” (nonplace) and “polis” (city). With this to Baldwin’s books for declaring broader work, Whitten signaled his own interests and possibilities of sexual identity. commitment to a cosmopolitan perspective.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 27 of 31 Black Monolith V Black Monolith VI (Full Circle: For LeRoi Jones (Mask [Updated Version] For Terry Adkins) 16 A.K.A. Amiri Baraka) 2014 2014 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas Private Collection, Switzerland Sheldon Inwentash and Lynn Factor, Toronto Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York

This memorial to Amiri Baraka (1934–2014), Whitten dedicated this painting to Terry Adkins who drew Whitten into a dynamic group (1953–2014), an interdisciplinary artist with of Black writers, activists, and musicians after a conceptual bent who, like Whitten himself, befriending him in 1962, features a large circle began his creative life as a saxophonist. Adkins’s of vibrant, variously textured tesserae against radical artistic practice grew to encompass a matte black background. The center of the sculpture, performance, photography, and video. circle pulses with green, blue, and shiny black A single installation might incorporate visual art, forms punctuated with bright yellows, oranges, music, spoken word, and found objects, all and reds. Baraka, a poet and activist who eliciting active engagement by the audience. At changed his name from LeRoi Jones in 1967, once visceral and cerebral, Adkins’s work inspired was the founder of the Black Arts Movement, Whitten to construct a complex and dynamic which espoused a Black cultural nationalism painting. Myriad textures of acrylic tiles seem and saw jazz as a distinctly Black and politically to slide and swirl, rising from dark grays, blacks, engaged art form. greens, and blues at the bottom to brighter shades of white, blue, and green at the top.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 28 of 31 Black Monolith VII Black Monolith VIII (For Maya Angelou) (Du Bois Legacy: For W. E. Burghardt) 2015 2014 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas Acrylic on canvas The , Brandeis University, Waltham, Private Collection Massachusetts, Mortimer & Sara Hays Acquisition Fund, Rose Art Special Fund, and Rose Purchase Fund

Whitten’s memorial to W. E. B. (William This painting honors Maya Angelou (1928–2014), Edward Burghardt) Du Bois (1868–1963) is the acclaimed poet, memoirist, educator, and structured around an imposing vertical form. activist who became a voice of broad cultural It is bordered by lustrous and translucent acrylic relevance for Black people and for women of all tiles, which surround an interior of smaller races. Angelou worked with Martin Luther King, tesserae snaked through by vibrant lines of blue, Jr., and was also a close friend and ally to Malcolm yellow, orange, and purple, with the brightest X. It is characteristic of Whitten to admire those region toward the top. The overall effect of who refuse to divide the world into neatly radiant power befits the painting’s subject. opposing points of view. The dense accumulation Cofounder of the Niagara Movement of shimmering color and sense of upward (predecessor to the NAACP), sociologist and movement in this painting recall words from one historian Du Bois combined scholarship with of Angelou’s best-known poems, Still I Rise: activism. Whitten admired him for his emphasis on the important role played by Africa in world history, his account of the Reconstruction You may write me down in history period, and his emphasis on education and With your bitter, twisted lies, knowledge production. You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 29 of 31 Black Monolith IX Black Monolith X (Open Circle For Ornette Coleman) (The Birth of Muhammad Ali) 17 2015 2016 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas Courtesy of Erica Tennenbaum and Alex Friedman The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection

In this bright, loose composition, hundreds Whitten used abstraction to convey the of colorful tesserae float in an open circle atop transformational energy he associated with a wavelike slab of acrylic paint. The composition champion heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali has an improvised quality akin to the work (1942–2016), who was also a Civil Rights activist of the innovative musician it memorializes. and pacifist. Born Cassius Clay, Ali renounced Ornette Coleman’s (1930–2015) free jazz was what he called his “slave name” and converted highly influential for the musical avant-garde, to Islam in 1964. Whitten and his brother Bill for artists and writers, and particularly for saw Ali box at Yankee Stadium. “It has his Whitten, who knew him personally. Whitten likeness about it,” the artist said of this mosaic- captured the musician’s innovative rhythmic like painting. “The man had this primal force freedom through his use of light, which he saw about him, but the beauty was...he could take as essential to the work of a painter. He that primal force and he knew how to structure explained, “Painters learn to construct the it. In a way, that’s what I want to do in painting.” density of light....I have discovered that within those densities of light there is a sound...”

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 30 of 31 May Gallery/Materials Room:

Two bottles: one transformed by acrylic mosaic, the other filled with olive oil pressed by the artist from his own grove. Together they suggest the many ways in which Whitten’s creativity suffused all aspects of his life. His studio and home were lively, nurturing spaces, where friends gathered, meals were shared, and art was made. The decorated bottle evokes the yard art of the American South, and also recalls the coiling techniques used in some African art-making traditions; olive oil is an early Cretan invention and a resource for well-being Whitten made these imprints of his hands in across the centuries. Whitten drew on his own family’s past as well as ancient Whitten poured acrylic paint into molds black acrylic and kept them on his studio wall. sources—Alabama and Crete—to build a creative and nurturing life. to form small sculptural objects that became People have left similar tracings on the walls raw material for his paintings, like the Black of caves for nearly 40,000 years, and throughout Monolith series. He called these things “tesserae,” modern history artists have been drawn to these after the pieces that make up a mosaic. He images of the earliest human impulse to make recognized the potential of the most ordinary a mark. Together with other objects from the kinds of things to be used as molds: seashells, studio, including the artist’s cap embellished bottle tops, coffee lids, and cookie cutters. in his signature futuristic silver, the hand prints This case holds objects that Whitten collected Whitten’s expansive creativity and humor are suggest Whitten’s belief that the past has in his journeys and kept as souvenirs. He valued apparent in the resulting expressive forms, information to offer about human identity and these items for their material vibrancy. A sea arrayed here like a collection of scientific self-expression in the future. They also show how sponge and pebbles from the island of Crete, specimens, much as they were in his studio. he pushed the capacities of paint—forming it a rock from Mt. Sinai in Egypt, and other into strings, mosaics, and shimmering panels. keepsakes of the natural world suggest the practice, familiar to all of us, of collecting objects and materials whose special auras spur our memories and inspire us.

odyssey Jack Whitten sculpture 1963–2017 The Baltimore Museum of Art, Thalheimer and May galleries April 22–July 29, 2018 Labels, page 31 of 31