How do you celebrate 50 years of Black arts, culture? The Gantt Center is going all out

Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture’s 50th anniversary in 2024 will be “a yearlong celebration of Black joy, genius, and excellence.”

“This is us celebrating a golden jubilee of a vision that defied all the odds and turned itself into a building. This is us, the heartbeat that lies inside, this is a safe place, but not for us to hide,” Gantt’s chosen Golden Year Poet Laureate Boris “Bluz” Rogers said in a poem he wrote marking the Gantt’s celebration.

Rogers spoke during Tuesday’s preview event at the uptown Charlotte center. “This was always the place for our Black history and our Black future to thrive,” he said.

Called “Gantt Golden Year: Pure Gold Celebrations Throughout 2024,” the schedule will feature public programs, talks, exhibitions, concerts and performances that will include local, national and international creators who reflect on the past and envision the future.

With partnerships and collaborations, the year will spotlight contributions of the Gantt to arts and culture in the Charlotte region.

“Throughout the year, the center will spotlight the people, places and cultural pride and possibilities that have paved our path from 1974 to today,” Gantt Center CEO David Taylor said during Tuesday’s announcement. “We will be the host of Black creators, thinkers and innovators, all luminaries in American history and culture.”

The Gantt Golden Year will be celebrated across five arts and cultural pillars: dance, literature, visual art, Afro-culinary food and music, said Joni Davis, Gantt board member.

“We’re presenting an Emmy Award-winning slam poet, the world’s first Black classical ballet company, a PEN/Hemingway award-winning novelist, the host of a Peabody Award-winning documentary, the Pulitzer prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project, a Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter, and a three-time Grammy Award-winning band.

“These are just a few of the things that you will see,” Taylor said.

Here’s are some of the highlights for Gantt Golden Year schedule and some history about the center:

Dance: ‘An expression of freedom’

Dance Theatre of Harlem, the world’s first Black classical ballet company, will perform Feb. 9-10 in partnership with Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. Authur Mitchell, the first Black principal dancer at New York City Ballet, co-founded the American professional ballet company and school, along with Karel Shook in Harlem, N.Y., in 1969. The group will hold performances for local school children, and two public performances on Friday and Saturday.

Other dance programs will include collaborations with local colleges, dance companies, teachers and choreographers. “Dance has long been an art form, a source of entertainment, and an expression of freedom in African-American culture,” said Bonita Buford, Gantt chief operating officer.

Literature: ‘The Big Read’

The National Endowment for the Arts chose the Gantt to lead “The Big Read.” The five-month, community-wide reading of “Homegoing,” a novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, will start Feb. 23 with book distribution and performance by Kankouran West African Dance Company.

Each month there will be programming for Black History, Women’s History, National Poetry, African World Heritage Day, and Immigrant Heritage and Juneteenth.

The Big Read will end June 27 with a talk featuring the author at the Wells Fargo Auditorium.

The Gantt is collaborating with Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Cabarrus County Library and J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte.

The Gantt also will feature talks and community forums, like the 1619 Project by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nikole Hannah-Jones on July 11 at Knight Theater. Her 1619 Project — also an Emmy Award-nominated docuseries on Hulu — spotlights the legacy of slavery in the contemporary U.S. and highlights contributions of Black Americans to every aspect of American society.

Visual art: ‘Powerful and thought-provoking’

Six art exhibitions by local, national and international artists are planned:

▪ Abstract painter Patrick Alston’s solo exhibition “Post-Traumatism: In Search of Freedom,” curated by Dexter Wimberly, will open next month and run through May 12. His work reflects on spirituality, socio-politics, identity, language, and the psychology of color. The exhibit has eight large-scale abstract paintings, seven of which created specifically for this exhibition, Leandra-Juliette Kelley, director of collections and curatorial affairs for the Gantt said Tuesday. Wrestling with the concepts of trauma, Austin seeks to transform them into symbols of resilience and hope.

“Austin’s brush strokes dance between chaos and order unveiling the inner conflict between pain and the unyielding desire for freedom,” Kelley said.

▪ Bringing together the work of more than a dozen contemporary Black women artists from around the world, “A Superlative Palette: Contemporary Black Women Artists,” runs Jan. 26 through July 11. The exhibition, curated by Wimberly, will includes works by Mickalene Thomas, Deborah Roberts and Amy Sherald.

“They’re powerful and thought-provoking work has not only redefined artistic expression but has also played a significant role in advocating for social justice, equality and empowerment,” Kelley said.

▪ “Let The Mermaids Flirt with Me” by Christopher Myers will be on view Feb. 2 through July 21. His work is rooted in storytelling and delves into the past slipping between history and mythology.

▪ Textile artist Qualeasha Wood’s solo exhibition will be on view May 24 through September. Wood’s work contemplates realities around Black female embodiment.

▪ The John & Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art will be on view August through September. The exhibit has 58 two-dimensional works by artists, including Charlotte-born Romare Bearden and other master artists such as Margaret Burroughs, Jonathan Green and Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Gantt is the permanent home of the Hewitt Collection.

▪ Black Rock Senegal group exhibition will be on view Aug. 9 through Jan. 20, 2025. Internationally acclaimed portrait painter Kehinde Wiley, founder of the Black Rock Senegal residency program, was commissioned to paint a portrait of former President Barack Obama for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition is the start of a five-year partnership with the Gantt as the sole national exhibitor of the residency’s artists.

Afro-culinary food: ‘Hyper-local’

Stephen Satterfield, American food writer and TV host of Netflix’s “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America” will be the Gantt’s scholar-in-residence.

He will lead three “hyper-local” farm-to-table community dinners in March, May and October, Buford said.

Satterfield will collaborate with regional Black farmers, restaurateurs, waitstaff and caterers, as well Charlotte chefs Brian and Subrina Collier for BayHaven Food & Wine Festival.

There also will be discussions about food insecurity, and physical and intellectual consumption, Buford said.

Music: ‘Soul-stirring’

Music will be a common theme interwoven throughout many of the Gantt Golden Year activities.

Award-winning musician and Charlotte native Dennis Reed Jr. will be the Gantt’s musical artist-in-residence. Among his many music ventures, his choral group G.A.P. were finalists on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.”

Reed said Tuesday the music will showcase gospel, jazz, blues, classical, R&B and hip hop, along with performances, classes and collaborations that will be “informing, interacting and entertaining.”

A concert with “soul-stirring Black music” is planned June 15 at Knight Theater as a prelude to local Juneteenth observances.

After a five-year absence due to COVID-19, the Gantt will hold Jazzy Gala featuring the Sounds of Blackness on Dec. 7, Reed said.

“As a Charlottean, I can just truly say visiting the African-American cultural center has helped shape me into the artist I am today,” Reed said.

About the Gantt Center

The Gantt was originally called the Charlotte Mecklenburg’s Afro-American Cultural and Service Center, which is still the legal name, Taylor said. It was founded in 1974 by two UNC Charlotte professors — Bertha Maxwell Roddey and the late Mary Harper — with a small collection focusing on children and emerging artists on the second level of Spirit Square.

“She was just mama to me,” said Harper’s daughter Jonette Harper after Tuesday’s announcement. “She instilled in us the art of giving, and inspired me to keep going and follow your dreams.”

Tuesday’s Gantt Golden Year preview event fell on the 14th anniversary of the Gantt Center’s debut at 551 S. Tryon St. with over 10,000 visitors, Taylor said.

The four-story, 46,490-square foot building is a “modernist structure wrapped in glass and metal” by architect Philip Freelon, co-designer of the Smithsonian National Museum for African American History and Culture.

The gallery is named for Harvey Gantt, the city’s first African-American mayor and the first African-American student at Clemson University.

For its 50th anniversary, the Gantt is creating a film project with 50 stories to document the center’s evolution from an idea to an institution with personal stories, Taylor said.

“We will capture and share nostalgic stories of remembrance, stories about impact illustrating our significance, and new perspectives affirming our relevance,” he said.