Jack Whitten: The MessengerMuseum of Modern ArtOn view through August 2nd, 2025
By Yasmeen Abdallah
Jack Whitten was a 20th-century Renaissance man. Born in Alabama in the Jim Crow era of what he described as “American Apartheid”, he came to New York as a young artist. Eager to mine every sidewalk for inspiration, he turned the studio into a sanctuary of experimentation, innovation, and cultivation. Whitten ran laps around the traditions of painting, making it exciting and new through his unique processes. His keen sense as a collector of various knowledges, experiences and ephemeral objects echoed poetically in fragmented and pastiche forms. Dalliances with specific color palettes feel prescient, as though Whitten is beside us, guiding us through his outstanding legacy. Through a celebration of Black leaders, and championing for civil rights, human rights, and freedom for all, his works were infused with what he witnessed, while maintaining hope for the future.
Whitten was a keeper of the stories he absorbed, and also a master of storytelling - within the artwork, as well as within the fabrication materials themselves. Whitten conveyed that his parents were early inspirations in how he approached art-making: he recalled as a young child seeing his father return from working in the coal mine covered in soot and ash, and his mother scrubbing the clothes clean again; her mending, patching and cobbling together scraps of fabric to make do stayed with him throughout Whitten’s life, and would inspire his own quest of scavenging for items, utilizing ash, and thinking about the canvas as fabric, in a way far beyond most painters. His treatment of the edges of the canvas are neat and considered; they are an extension of the painting, and yet one more testament to the thoroughness and excellence of Whitten’s practice. Craft and fabrication are two elements that are particularly striking. Everything is well made and durable. His “ready now” sculptures were cast from acrylic paint molds and are inlaid within the canvases. Whitten also developed innovative tools that appear Duchampian in nature; yet these fascinating devices were fashioned to paint large floor-sized compositions.
Birmingham 1964, 1964.
Aluminum foil, newspaper, stocking, and oil on board.
Image courtesy of the writer.
Homage to Malcolm, 1970. Acrylic on canvas.
Images courtesy of the writer.
Left: Fifth Gestalt (Coal Miner), Right: Sixth Gestalt (The Seamstress), both acrylic and ink on canvas,1992.
The artist also mirrored the current climates in his work. His later pieces reflect the hope and change the Obama presidency had promised; while his earlier works would often reflect on pivotal aspects and events like jazz, civil rights marches, segregation, and the war in Vietnam. He thought a lot about dispossession and diasporas, and the cruelties of man. His reconstructing of materials was in conversation with these sentiments, and the visceral energies come through clearly in his reflective works. In utilizing the brush, Whitten harnessed the anxieties, frustrations, and anger of people everywhere in calling for justice, and an end to violence. He is an artist who not only recognized these plights, but used his talents to speak out against atrocities at home and abroad. May Whitten continue to be a reminder to artists today who shy away from political and moral issues to stand up for others and oppose oppression. Rarely are we gifted with such a generous look into the studio processes of an artist, and one so exceptionally prolific at that. With this glorious alchemy, he continues to cast spells that enchant generations.
One of Whitten’s tools. Image courtesy of the writer.
NY Battle Ground, 1967. Oil on canvas
Ogun’s Shield, 1989. Acrylic and wood elements on canvas and wood board with welded steel frame.
Image courtesy of the writer.
Installation view. Image courtesy of the writer.
Installation view. Image courtesy of the writer.
