GESTURES OF REFUSAL
Black New Orleans photographers have long used their cameras as a tool of resistance to racism, exclusion, invisibility, displacement, and even the wrath of the flood that followed Hurricane Katrina. That’s the point of the “Gestures of Refusal” exhibition that currently covers two whole floors of the Contemporary Arts Center.
With roughly 250 photographs by 105 photographers, there’s a lot to take in. Luckily, it’s not one of those shows where the photos are lined up on blank walls, one after another, like boxcars.
Curator Shana M. griffin (whose name is spelled lower case) has divided the feast of photographs up by theme and has even produced five separate installations to better engage audiences in the experience.
It all starts in the so-called “Living Room,” where a selection of snapshots and commercial photos capture ordinary Black family life. As griffin explained, the home has always been where Black people were able to curate intimate images — “loved ones, couples, weddings, and children” — without the sort of stereotyping and marginalization they often encountered in the world at large. Living rooms are private art galleries.
The “Living Room” display is decorated with homey furniture and nostalgia-inducing wallpaper. Elsewhere in the sprawling exhibit is a sophisticated apartment interior, appointed with sansevieria, modern sculpture by Martin Payton and an array of artistic nude photos. The setting is decidedly different than the “Living Room,” but the intended theme of photographic expression pushing back against the influence of racial oppression is the same.
Some photos in the ‘Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture’ exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center are displayed in the environment of a sophisticated apartment.
In a small back room found at the end of a dark corridor, visitors to the CAC will encounter “Honey Bear’s Hot Spot,” an old-school Black neighborhood bar. The joint is lined with lush photos by L. Kasimu Harris of folks taking it easy, as a huge video screen boils with a kinetic second-line parade. Cocktail glasses stand on a bar near the video screen, glinting in the scarlet glow of neon beer signs.
As griffin lamented, gentrification is making such saloons and lounges scarcer and scarcer. The curator believes Harris’s work holds back the tide, artistically anyway, by capturing such scenes for posterity. “It’s like a protest against forgetting,” she said.
Upstairs, there’s another darkroom lit only by a deep red glow. Most people, griffin said, have never seen the inside of a photo darkroom, and they are increasingly less likely to, as digital photography continues to dominate. But griffin’s darkroom — complete with the vinegary scent of developing solution — is a touchstone of the craft and labor that photographers bring to their work. It is lined with lustrous black and white prints, hung from clotheslines, as if drying. Look for a few shots by official Jazz Fest photographer Girard Mouton III.
One exhibit space in the ‘Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture’ exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center captures the appearance of an old-fashioned darkroom.
Also upstairs is an altar dedicated to the legendary Mother Katharine Seals and traditional spirit churches that were once more common in New Orleans. Seals, who died in 1930, is seen in a historic photo or two loaned by Xavier University.
Large mud bricks, made by sculptor MaPo Kinnord seem to symbolize the spirit church’s anchor in both the ethereal and earthly worlds. The photos of the Black spirit churches, griffin explained, indicate how “traditional healing practices have been disregarded.”
Visitors mustn’t overlook the small round gallery on the CAC’s ground floor, devoted to photographer Polo Silk. Silk employed his trusty polaroid camera — which he dubbed Chelsea — to document the rise of hip-hop culture in the Crescent City in the 1980s and beyond.
The tiny, one-of-a-kind photos of young people swept up in new music and fashion are some of the most transporting images in the show. The gallery includes a wicker throne and airbrush-style backdrop for selfies.
As griffin explains, Polo Silk simply refused to allow that slice of Black culture to slip by without being captured — although the styles emerging from housing developments were generally swept away be what she called the “politics of disgust.”
New Orleans master photographer Polo Silk, who documented the early rap scene, is given his own gallery in the ‘Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture’ exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center captures the appearance of an old-fashioned darkroom.
And that’s not everything. “Gestures of Refusal” includes passages of nature photography, queer fashion shots, musicians, Black Masking Indians, vintage photos from both the 1960s civil rights struggle and the Black Lives Matter protests, and cemetery scenes — including a poignant image by the late Times-Picayune photographer Bryan S. Berteaux. Plus a suite of the cracked and splintery photos by Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun, made from negatives that were submerged in the 2005 flood and later rescued, bearing the scars of their ordeal.
The sweep of the show is astounding. Congratulations to feminist/activist/artist griffin, who is currently resident curator at the CAC, and all of her consultants, collaborators, and, of course the 105 photographers.
“Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture” is part of the ongoing “Seeing Black” series of exhibitions at various institutions. The show continues through April 29.
The CAC is at 900 Camp St. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Tuesdays. Admission is $10 or $8 for seniors and students. For more information, visit the CAC website.
Visitors to the ‘Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture’ exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center enter the atmosphere of a Black neighborhood barroom.
