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WE SAY WHAT BLACK THIS IS

Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is pleased to announce Amanda Williams: We Say What Black This Is, an exhibition showcasing oil and watercolor paintings by Amanda Williams, a Chicago-based, MacArthur award-winning artist. Trained as an architect, Williams uses her expertise to interrogate systemic racism through the lens of spatial dynamics. The exhibition features work from her series “What Black Is This You Say?” created in response to the “Blackout Tuesday” social media call to post a solid black square in protest of police brutality in 2020. With a range of abstract paintings in the same square format as the Instagram grid, rich in texture and hue, alongside intimately scaled watercolors that incorporate handwritten notes and phrases, Williams explores cultural, social, and political dimensions of Black identity, particularly how Black spaces are formed, defined, and erased. Central to Williams’ work is the interplay between color and language. Her titles, infused with Black vernacular, forge immediate connections with Black audiences, turning colloquial expressions into tools for critiquing oppressive systems and celebrating the beauty and complexity of Blackness.
In this exhibition, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art will show a recently acquired painting by Amanda Williams. This key work, What black is this you say?—”El Español es tu lengua materna pero estás orgullosa de tus raíces Africanas.”—black, is an abstract painting that will be shown publicly for the first time. It encapsulates the intersection of African and Latinx identities. Amanda Williams: We Say What Black This Is challenges reductive definitions of Blackness, instead celebrating its diversity, resilience, and depth. Through Williams’ mastery of space, color, and language—and in conversation with historic and contemporary Black artists—the exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the multifaceted nature of Black identity in America.
Amanda Williams What black is this you say?—"A west side imma snatch-yo-edges-back-with-a-hand-gesture" black—black (08.27.2020), v2, 2023 Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 60 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York Photo: Jason Wyche
Amanda Williams What black is this you say?—“You secretly believe praying over your smothered pork chops reduces the risk of hypertension and calories”— black, (study 06.06.20), 2020, Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 20 x 20 in., Collection of Mark J. Bevington. Image courtesy of the artist, Rhona Hoffman Gallery and Casey Kaplan, New York
Amanda Williams What black is this you say?—“You really wanted to be a beauty of the week or to have your accomplishments announced in Jet Magazine”— black (09.08.20), 2020 Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 20 x 20 in. Collection of Rachel and Peter Goulding. Image courtesy of the artist, Rhona Hoffman Gallery and Casey Kaplan, New York
Amanda Williams What black is this you say?—"You once told me you wanted to live somewhere where there are more than 4 or 5 ways to be black"—black, 2021 Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 60 x 60 in. Collection of the Blanchard Nesbitt Family. Image courtesy of the artist, Rhona Hoffman Gallery and Casey Kaplan, New York
Thomas Sils The Lovers, 1960 Oil on canvas Clark Atlanta University Collection
Curated by Curator in Residence Karen Comer Lowe, Amanda Williams: We Say What Black This Is explores the richness of Williams’ abstract paintings, featuring contributions from Spelman College students and the students from the AUC Art Collective in Atlanta. The exhibition places these abstract paintings by Amanda Williams in conversation with works by prominent Black artists in Atlanta collections, including Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and private collectors. Amanda Williams: We Say What Black This Is includes works by Betty Blayton, Sheila Pree Bright, Beverly Buchanan, Beauford Delaney, Sam Gilliam, Maren Hassinger, Jacob Lawrence, Deborah Roberts, Thomas Sills, Alma Thomas, and Ming Washington to offer multifaceted perspectives on Black identity. Delaney’s expressive abstract paintings explore spirituality, Buchanan’s sculptures evoke resilience in the rural South, and Roberts’ mixed-media works interrogate portrayals of Black children. Ming Washington, a recent graduate of Spelman College, offers a poem engaging the cultural significance of Kool-Aid, creating a layered exploration of Black womanhood and shared cultural symbols. Together, these works by Black artists in Atlanta collections deepen our engagement with themes present in Williams’ paintings including abstraction, architecture, color, and re-interrogations of Blackness.
Sheila Pree Bright Suburbia Series, Untitled 3, 2008 Chromogenic print Collection of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Foundational to Amanda Williams: We Say What Black This Is are student-written didactic labels, bringing the voices of the students of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) to the fore. Students from Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Clark Atlanta University participated in a course on Amanda Williams instructed by Dr. Cheryl Finely and Curator in Residence & professor, Karen Comer Lowe. The students helped develop thematic frameworks, engaged with the artist’s studio practice, and wrote didactic labels seen in the exhibition. The frameworks were formed through engagement with the artist’s studio practice, fostering connections between the artist, exhibition works, and the AUC community.The title of the show Amanda Williams: We Say What Black This Is suggests an inquiry into the many definitions, interpretations, and representations of Blackness. It questions the monolithic views and invites viewers to consider the diverse ways Blackness is lived, performed, and visualized. The exhibition likely challenges the audience to think about how Black identity is shaped by history, culture, and individual experience, and how these elements are communicated through.

About Amanda Williams

Amanda Williams (b. 1974, Evanston, IL) lives and works in Chicago, IL. Williams received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, NY in 1997. Amanda Williams’ practice deconstructs the physical and psychological systems of inequity. Informed by her architectural background, Williams’ command of space shapes her meditations on race, color, and value. Drawing from an array of source material and using color as an operative logic to interpret the elusive meaning of ‘blackness,’ Williams complicates readings of our spatial surroundings. With a multidisciplinary practice that spans painting, works on paper, photography, sculpture, and installation, Williams communicates through a chromatic language of abstract and material means. Williams has exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale; MCA Chicago, IL; MoMA, NY; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, among others. Her work resides in public collections including MoMA, NY, The Art Institute of Chicago, IL and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, NY. Williams serves on the boards of the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and is a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective. Williams is co-author of a forthcoming permanent monument to Shirley Chisholm in Brooklyn, NY and is the recipient of the USA Ford Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Foundation award, a Chicagoan of the Year, and most recently was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.