Jack Whitten: The Messenger - by Michelle Kuo (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Jack Whitten offered the world a new way to see. Over nearly six decades, he dared to invent new forms of abstraction, constantly transforming both perception and our understanding of art in society. This gorgeously illustrated volume, with pathbreaking new perspectives and revelatory technical analyses of his innovative materials and processes, explores Whitten's wide-ranging and game-changing practice. Raised in the segregated Jim Crow South in the 1940s, Whitten undertook an extraordinary journey in becoming an artist, convinced that by changing form, he could help change the world. Despite pressure from peers to create figurative art, he was a key proponent of creating abstract art that responded to social turmoil; to his own identity as a Black artist; and to sea changes in technology. He created new ways of painting through a series of artistic inventions and strategies. He defied traditional boundaries between abstraction and representation, pictures and things, culture and technology, individual identity and global history. Published to accompany the first comprehensive retrospective of Whitten's art, this sumptuous catalog presents the full range of his career across painting, sculpture and works on paper, produced in New York and Greece, with texts by leading art historians and artists, and new technical analyses by conservators. Previously unpublished writings by the artist and an expansive chronology of Whitten's life, featuring newly discovered photographs and archival materials, bring into focus an artist who was as committed to human perception as to human rights, becoming one of the most important artists of our time."--

Book Synopsis

The first full retrospective of Whitten's dazzling and trenchant abstraction from the 1960s-2010s, which transformed the relationship between art, race and society

Jack Whitten offered the world a new way to see. Over nearly six decades, he dared to invent new forms of abstraction, constantly transforming both perception and our understanding of art in society. This gorgeously illustrated volume, with pathbreaking new perspectives and revelatory technical analyses of his innovative materials and processes, explores Whitten's wide-ranging and game-changing practice.
Raised in the segregated Jim Crow South in the 1940s, Whitten undertook an extraordinary journey in becoming an artist, convinced that by changing form, he could help change the world. Despite pressure from peers to create figurative art, he was a key proponent of creating abstract art that responded to social turmoil; to his own identity as a Black artist; and to sea changes in technology. He created new ways of painting through a series of artistic inventions and strategies. He defied traditional boundaries between abstraction and representation, pictures and things, culture and technology, individual identity and global history.
Published to accompany the first comprehensive retrospective of Whitten's art, this sumptuous catalog presents the full range of his career across painting, sculpture and works on paper, produced in New York and Greece, with texts by leading art historians and artists, and new technical analyses by conservators. Previously unpublished writings by the artist and an expansive chronology of Whitten's life, featuring newly discovered photographs and archival materials, bring into focus an artist who was as committed to human perception as to human rights, becoming one of the most important artists of our time.
Jack Whitten (1939-2018) was born in Bessemer, Alabama, and began his studies in medicine at the Tuskegee Institute. After moving to New York in 1960 to attend the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, he became a leading artist in the wake of Abstract Expressionism, and of a generation of Black artists committed to abstraction. Whitten lived in New York until his death.

Review Quotes

[No] matter the year or subject, Whitten's work remains a fruitful site of play, improvisation, experimentation, grounding, reverence, and convergence, an outlet for all the expressive vulnerability, emotion, and meaning his body could hold.--Lee Ann Norman "The Brooklyn Rail"

From a work of swirling sorbet oranges to a sewn black surface with a hole punched through it, these paintings invite you to get up close.--Lisa Yin Zhang "Hyperallergic"

The catalogue itself is a monumentally impressive piece of scholarship and taste, a stunning group effort that brings together too many luminaries to name, led by MoMA curator and publisher Michelle Kuo. This book, this show, is the kind of world I want.--David O'Neill "Bookforum"

What appears to be brilliantly restless innovation is revealed to be rigorous interrogation of what painting, and only painting, can do. The opportunity to see this for ourselves, to test it against our own perceptions, makes the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective not only one of its best shows in a decade but, if properly attended to, one of its most consequential.--Jarrett Earnest "The New York Review of Books"

[A] breathtaking, deeply researched glimpse of a career that unfolded in one long eureka.--Julian Lucas "The New York Times"

A remarkable aspect of Kim's oeuvre is how ASL, written English, musical notation, and gestural mark-making are fused into a coherent, unified language--John Vincler "Cultured"

Endlessly inventive, [Jack Whitten] mastered complex techniques to animate his visceral imagery.--R.C. Baker "Village Voice"

Jack Whitten's paintings are like voids you fall into before finding you don't want to leave.--Camille Okhio "Elle Decor"

The pieces on view in 'The Messenger' - Whitten's retrospective at MoMA - exceed painting: they reach past the medium, live beyond its edges.--Zoe Hopkins "Frieze"

The American artist moved from the segregated South to the New York art world and beyond as he forged unique processes of painting and sculpting, the textured, totemic results of which are now on view in a staggering retrospective.--James Panero "The Wall Street Journal"

To walk through the MoMA show and marvel at Whitten's polymath abilities, his deep political and social engagement, and his restless imagination is to be reminded all over again of the loss to ourselves and our culture that we did not know and appreciate a talent like Whitten's better when he was alive.--Marion Maneker "Puck"

[Jack Whitten's] work influenced generations of artists -- from Andy Warhol to Glenn Ligon -- but looked like nothing else before or since.--M.H. Miller "T Magazine"

For Whitten, one of the great painters of the past half century, everything was light--people, places, paintings, all of it. He was less interested in depicting light than in embodying it in paint, no small task.--Alex Greenberger "ArtNews"

Persistently original, restlessly evolving, and uncharmed by fashion.--Ariella Budick "The Financial Times"

The late Jack Whitten refused categorization in favor of forging his own way through the 1960s New York art scene. The painter used distinctive techniques, making marks with materials such as Afro combs, saws, and squeegees. These and more examples of his enduring legacy will be on view in his first full retrospective, plus several pieces on public display for the first time.--Natalie Haddad "Hyperallergic"

The show's more than 175 works will span nearly six decades of [Jack Whitten's] practice, which explored the Civil Rights Movement, science, and technology via an impressive range of disciplines including painting, sculpture, collage, photography, printmaking, and music. A tenor saxophonist, he brought an improvisational approach to his work.--Julie Belcove "Robb Report"

What makes Whitten remarkable is more than just his embrace of ambiguity or his technical experimentation. It's his ability to use abstraction to create palimpsests of poetic meaning, inspired by jazz and hyper-attuned to the implications of modern communication.--Sebastian Smee "The Washington Post"

Whitten spoke, with wishful optimism, of wanting to be an artist-citizen of the world, a world in which 'there is no race, no color, no gender, no territorial hangups, no religion, no politics. There is only life.' Life is what this great show of his fantastically inventive art is filled with.--Holland Cotter "The New York Times"