Dr. Heidi R. Lewis, Assistant Professor of Feminist & Gender Studies at Colorado College, reviews the exhibition Beyond Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire: Reclaiming Images of Black Women, opening Friday, December 2nd at Alexandria Museum of Art in Louisiana, for The Feminist Wire. The exhibit was jointly curated by Alexandria Museum of Art and I.D.E.A. Space at Colorado College from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.
Dr. Lewis writes that she invites audiences "to understand and appreciate Beyond Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire: Reclaiming Images of Black Women, as well as the Black women it honors, by employing a deliberately Black feminist and womanist lens." The exhibit features contemporary artists Kara Walker, Alison Saar, Mickalene Thomas, Wangechi Mutu, Mildred Howard, and more, and aims to question and overturn entrenched archetypes of Black femininity.
"The artists featured in Beyond Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire are attempting to create a space in which Black women can remain forever in love with ourselves and comfortable in our own skins," Dr. Lewis writes, "inspired by our dirt and scars and uninhibited by tales of our unworthiness."
The exhibition is on view through February 18th, 2017.
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