Amanda Williams gave us tastes and glimpses of ‘Blackness,’ artistic proof that the culture is not monolithic. If you don’t know, now you know.
How much do you think about color? The hues that exist around you? Some may affect your mood? While other shades carry with it a historical meaning and begs for proper context.
For Amanda Williams, color is a constant in her work. In this pandemic year, Williams looked at Blackness in its myriad colors. Her series called “What Black is this, You Say?” is one focused on various photos of black items posted on her Instagram account. The viewer can see the tint, but can’t necessarily make out the actual item in the picture. The images are accompanied by text/caption that describes the pigmentation at which you are looking. The wording can be funny, introspective, flip, or right on the nose. The series follows her previous multiyear “Color(ed) Theory” project wherein she painted condemned South Side houses in colors like Harold’s Chicken Shack red, Newport 100s teal, and Crown Royal bag purple to acknowledge the racially tinted architectonic blight of Black communities.
At the time, the Bronzeville resident said her social media series was “pushback” in part to those who think “Blackness is monolithic.” Williams’ nuanced work showed that Blackness is not expressed in one way, just as frustrations with injustice are not. That work extended to EXPO CHICAGO’s virtual dinner-and-conversation event with Erick Williams, chef/owner of Hyde Park’s Virtue restaurant. The two Williams co-hosted the summer party where a four course menu was prepared and sent to participants’ homes for them to enjoy while watching/partaking in a conversation among the two artists. The pair talked about issues of race embedded in Devil’s Food Cake vs. Angel Food Cake — a different way of having a conversation about everyday labels, things and tastes experienced through art. The effort helped to raise funds for anti-racism in the arts.
In October, Amanda Williams was awarded a $50,000 award from 3Arts for her continued growth in the visual arts. We spoke with Williams at her Pilsen studio about her year of creativity and what 2021 will bring. On deadline for a project that will be a part of the February MoMa exhibit, “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America,” Williams was animated when talking about being a part of the group of 10 Black architects that will talk about Blackness and architecture.
“It’s really powerful,” she said. “This show has been at least two years in the making. It seems like it’s something they thought of because of everything that’s going on, but it’s not. It’s the brilliance of the curators that really fought to have it.”
Her Pilsen studio had a number of emergency foil blankets with designs on them. Williams said the foil is a strong metaphor about the state of Black people in the United States, a concept that she is calling the Map to Free Black Space.
“The show’s called Reconstructions, so it’s looking at that era right after emancipation where Blacks were promised equal inclusion and they didn’t receive it,” she said. “The idea (of a free Black space) is always very delicate and precarious and you never quite can get there and you never quite know how to get there. You have all the tools, but you don’t really know. We’re always in a state of emergency but what would it mean to throw the blanket away?”
Williams is also excited about being a part of the newly formed Black Reconstruction Collective, a nonprofit whose mission is to fund future works of Black creatives, work that often goes underfunded or unsupported. She said she’s putting a portion of her 3Arts money into the organization as a way of paying it forward — monies that can seed the next thing.
“This is not a small fund to help with framing your next show,” Williams said. “This is about people that are really drilling down on powerful ideas that otherwise wouldn’t have a resource for funding. We know that there are a lot of Black space makers, visionaries ... If you’re Black and want to make a brand-new typeface and you’re a graphic designer, who’s going to fund it? That’s the idea.”
