Vancouver Art Gallery, July 10- March 13 2022
Note: There is an Artist talk with Jan Wade at 4pm on October 21st; more information here.
As you enter the third floor of the Vancouver Art Gallery, you encounter the "Spirit House" (2021) which evokes an altar, a biblical Ark, and is covered in religious and pop-culture symbols.
"Examinations of the African diaspora and Black spiritual practices form the basis of Wade's practice" [VAG]. In fact, there is so much symbolism in this exhibition that I wish I had a much stronger understanding of everything being referenced. I therefore welcome all comments and corrections!
On the Spirit House “HEAL,” “LOVE,” “OK,” “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” and “SOUL POWER” are spelled out on the roof and walls of the sculpture house as mantras, while as Ekalan Hou points out in her article (see link): "tears drip down from Aimé Césaire’s quote: “they sold us like beasts, and they counted our teeth.” [Ekalan Hou]
Notice the combs on the spirit house?
Reminded me of Beyoncé's lyrics in Sorry “better call Becky with the good hair” and the recent CBC Ideas podcast ‘Tangled Roots: a history of Black Hair’ that discusses the tension between assimilation/negation of African hair and the more recent revival of celebrating the uniqueness of "Black" hair.
From a 2013 article "The politics of Black Women's Hair" from the Journal of Undergraduate Research, Minnesota State University: "emulating white standards of beauty for body image and particularly for hair meant having more status, the possibility to pass as white, become free and even survival in
some instances (Patton, 2006). The mixed children from slave masters had looser, straighter and
softer hair considered “good hair”, which added to the pressure African Americans experienced
to appear as white as they could (Tate, 2007). "
Jan Wade was born in 1952 in Hamilton, Ontario, to a Black Canadian father with familial origins in the American South and a Canadian mother of European descent. Raised in a relatively segregated but close-knit Black community within the city, her formative years were heavily influenced by her local African Methodist Episcopal Church. She was also greatly influenced by Southern US Black culture and aesthetics from the perspectives of her paternal grandmother and great-grandmother. Once she moved to Vancouver, Wade began her research into African diasporic spiritual practices and decided she wanted her art to reflect where she came from and who she is, commencing her unique artistic journey marked by self-sufficiency, empowerment, hope and radical joy. [source: Soul Power]
“I’m really interested in the transference of African spiritual practice to Christianity and the kind of journey it took,” Jan Wade says. Thus, the maquette Spirit House, representing a spot slaves could meet and worship on a plantation, “isn’t exactly just a Christian thing but it’s also a very African thing. It’s that transmutation of going from here to there.” [Galleries West]
The many raised index fingers call us to attention (or point at us to reflect?) and the index and middle finger together raised in benediction - or victory? The cultural context of hand symbols can be so challenging!
In my research i got slightly side-tracked into the various gestures (and their meaning) of saints in medieval icons - so I hope I can use that somewhere :) Sadly, none of those gestures was a simple single raised index finger, though the discussion about Roman orator practices mentioned it is meant to call to attention.
Other symbols on the Spirit house, and repeated on many of the other pieces:
- Upside down horseshoe
- Antler
- Hand with raised index finger
- Crucifix
- Totem
- Beaver
- Star
- "OK"
- Comb
- Cockerel
- Crutch
- Rosette
- Crown
- Skull
- Teardrop (?)
I plan to do some more research on these symbols, and I'm hoping to listen to the artist interview this Thursday, and will update this post! I will also do a next post on her paintings, among which a Picasso and an Obama reference!
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