Thursday reminded me of what’s great about living in San Francisco. The day began with a press tour of “Faith Ringgold: American People,” a retrospective of the 91-year-old artist’s work at the de Young, and ended at a KQED Live event with Oakland’s own Danyel Smith, author of ”A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop.” Having the good fortune to spend a big part of the day immersed in the work of two brilliant Black women was like someone turning the lights and music back on inside of me.
The Ringgold show, which covers more than 50 years of Ringgold’s paintings, quilts and soft sculptures and includes the original paintings for her beloved children’s book “Tar Beach,” could as well been called “A Very Personal History of Black Women in Art and in America.” Work that Ringgold made in the mid-1960s, around the time Smith was born in Oakland, feels as vivid and relevant today as it must have then — responsive to the pain, violence and waste of racism and sexism; reflective of Black family love and joy; and dreaming of worlds where Black women are at the helm of their own bright and complex destinies.
Her paintings “The American Flag is Bleeding” and “Flag for the Moon: Die N—” were Ringgold’s responses to racial violence and Black despair over the millions America was spending on the space race when poor people were starving on Earth. A quilt painting of a Black community at a church picnic and another of the Tar Beach family having supper on the roof of a Harlem apartment building capture Black people too caught up in loving each other to be worried about what white people were up to. Several of the story quilts, most notably in the French Collection, center Black heroines and their relationships to their art, to history and to each other. Intergenerational love and support and creative and activist collaboration are central to Ringgold’s art and her life. She collaborated with her late mother, couturier Willie Posey Jones, on some of her textile works and raised activist daughters Michele Wallace, a feminist cultural critic, and linguist Barbara Wallace.
Trust me when I say Smith is traveling some of the same roads as Ringgold in her new book, which is part deep history of Black women in pop music and part memoir of these women’s influence on Smith’s life and work. If you were living here in the early ‘90s and reading the weeklies, you would remember when she began writing about hip-hop for the S.F. Bay Guardian, the East Bay Express and S.F. Weekly. Smith was the first woman music writer I ever read, and she was writing about the music I loved. You never forget the first time a piece of writing or art or a movie or a song makes you feel not just seen, but recognized.
Race and equity are central concerns of Ringgold and Smith, now the host of Spotify’s “Black Girl Songbook” podcast.
A fascinating entry in the de Young show is documentation of Ringgold’s 1960s activism on behalf of Black artists — for equitable representation in major New York museums — and on behalf of Black people who often didn’t feel welcome or couldn’t afford to visit those museums. She co-authored and signed “Black Artist Demand (sic) Separate Wing” to the Museum of Modern Art in 1969. According to Gary Carrion-Murayari, one of the original curators of the version of the show in New York, the MOMA only got around to purchasing some of Ringgold’s work five years ago.
Smith is obsessed with ensuring that Black women in the music industry get their due credit. Thursday night at KQED she noted that unlike white women, Black women who perform and write songs are rarely referred to as “singer-songwriters.” We all know about singer-songwriters Joni Mitchell and Carole King, but did you know that Mariah Carey shares one of her own 53 songwriting credits (“If It’s Over”) with King? She also noted, “Coachella gets all the press, but Essence Festival gets all the people.” According to Smith, the July music festival sponsored by Essence magazine since 1995, draws more revenue than the much-hyped Coachella.
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Largely because of her own innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, Ringgold has done better than most Black and/or women artists of her era — hers is a story of an artist making a way out of no way: working on fabric in part because it was easier to transport and store than stretched canvas, touring and “performing” her story quilts on college campuses to reach younger audiences. She’s had significant shows throughout her career, but it is exciting to see her “getting her flowers” with this major retrospective. Ringgold didn’t wait for anyone to say her name: She even made it the subject of a painting.
The scenes at the de Young Thursday morning and at KQED at night were starkly different, and they point to how issues of equity and inclusion can play out in public spaces.
I bought my own $10 ticket to the KQED event. The crowd was mixed, but predominantly Black women. Yes, the non-Black people were outnumbered, but no one seemed to be stressing. By the end of the night, everyone was singing along to “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.” Honestly, it felt really good to be surrounded by Black people at a cultural event in a space — KQED — not typically associated with people of color. This is a rare experience. I was at the University of San Francisco last spring when NPR President and CEO John Lansing said that getting younger and more diverse listeners engaged with public radio is mission critical. Lansing also talked about the importance of having people of color in key decision-making positions. KQED should not be confused with NPR, but they appear to be moving in a similar direction. Ariana Proehl, the host of Thursday night’s event, and KQED’s Live Events producer Lance Gordon, are both Black.
In contrast, nearly everyone who attended the Ringgold press event was white. Granted, it’s not fair to compare a gaggle of scribes to a general audience. Despite the two older Black men I met on the way to the Obama Portraits exhibit, when I got there I was surrounded by white-haired white women. No shade to these women: I really do believe that if it wasn’t for older white women in the seats at the theater and ballet and symphony, in the halls of museums, a lot of those institutions wouldn’t be here. But as Lansing noted, cultural institutions have to look beyond the aging, white supporters upon whom they have long depended. Ringgold wasn’t thinking about any of that in 1969 — what she cared about was fair access for artists of color and the communities that produced them. Let’s be real: Both are right.
The de Young, with the support of Diane Wilsey, is honoring Ringgold’s vision by making her show and the Obama portraits more accessible to all Bay Area residents. These shows are part of the general admission ticket and free to Bay Area residents on Saturdays.
“It is a part of the Fine Arts Museums’ mission to ensure the museums are as accessible as possible,” said Shaquille Heath, a de Young spokesperson. “As The City’s museum, we are always thinking about how to get more Bay Area residents into the door and understand that ticket cost can often be a barrier to entry.”
Get to the deYoung and gorge on Ringgold. Leave invigorated, provoked, delighted and fortified.
