Negarra A. Kudumu is an independent scholar.
Her intellectual interests reside at the intersections of contemporary art, curation and critical theory with a specific interest in the contemporary visual culture of the African continent, Iran, South Asia, and their respective diasporas. — negarraakudumu.com
Pierre Soulages.
Peinture 102 x 165 cm, 17 juillet 2013. 2013
Courtesy Dominique Lévy and Galerie Perrotin.
Thanks to my mother, art has always been a part of my life. As a child, we regularly visited the Art Institute of Chicago. We also attended local festivals on Chicago's south side where artists unknown to the "art world" exhibited and sold their work. At home, my mother had these beautiful black and white photographs of her parents from the 1940s at various Chicago jazz clubs. My grandfather was always in a suit and tie and my grandmother in a striking hat or donning a flower in her hair. They were the picture of elegance and style.
The year 2010 was a major turning point for me as a consumer of fine art, specifically painting: I saw the exhibition of Pierre Soulages' work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and was overcome. Contained in these works of Soulages is the entire universe. There is topography, there is light, there is texture. All of this Soulages achieves with one color: black. Where traditionally, in the words of Quignard, "to blacken is to annihilate visible form", Soulages does the exact opposite and creates new forms and silhouettes with black. In the artist's own words,
"J'aime l'autorité du noir, sa gravité, son évidence, sa radicalité . Son puissant pouvoir de contraste donne un présence intense à toutes les couleurs et lorsqu'il illumine les plus obscures, il leur confère une grandeur sombre. Le noir a des possibiltés insoupçonnées et, attentif à ce que j'ignore, je vais à leur rencontre."
"I like the authority of black, it's severity, it's obviousness, it's radicalism. It's powerful ability of contrast provides an intense presence to all colors and when it illuminates the darkest colors, it gives them a somber grandeur. Black has unimagined possibilities and, attentive to that which I do not know, I am going to find them."
This quote brings together perfectly the aesthetic grandeur and conceptual heft of Soulages work. Every time I reread it I am transported back to February 2010, but also reinvigorated for Soulages words for me are like a mandate. This underpinning coupled with the visual effects of Soulages' black on canvas left an indelible imprint on my psyche. In both my personal life and professional practice, I have ended up doing what is considered impossible given my background. I view my life as a space of unimagined possibilities and in stark contrast to society's antiquated, prescribed notions of how women like myself should conduct themselves, I intend to uncover every possibility.
Negarra A. Kudumu