Milan exhibition of Noel W.'s tapestries. Anderson on the distorted narrative of black identity

The Mudima Foundation in Milan is hosting, from November 19 to December 17, 2021, the exhibition It’s a magic, a solo show by American artist Noel W. Anderson (Louisville, 1981), which through the well-known faces of great African American sportsmen Anderson denounces the substantial invisibility of black men outside the contexts of spectacle proposed by the media. This is the first Italian exhibition by the American artist, who reflects on the distorted narrative that the media propose of black identity, inviting the public to reconsider it from a different point of view, and reminds that “Black Lives Matter.”

The exhibition features twenty-four large-scale tapestries, all hand-woven and made for the occasion, in which Anderson alters archival images from television, magazines, and other media to give the impression of looking at a television screen: thus combining the ancient technique of weaving with the contemporary visual culture of photography and moving images. Famous faces of great African American sportsmen appear in the tapestries: the very title of the exhibition echoes that of one of the works on display in which Magic Johnson, NBA Hall of Fames and LA Lakers champion, is portrayed. Indeed, the artist uses basketball and its icons (such as Michael Jordan, Spud Webb or, indeed, Magic Johnson) to challenge the viewer to rethink his or her relationship with the black body “exhibited” in front of a white audience.

But It’s Magic is also meant to be a call to the magical and supernatural. In fact, the artist turns images upside down, plays with shadows through which bodies dissolve transforming into something else. This play of reflections governs perception and at the same time deceives the viewer. In a similarly “magical” way, Anderson dematerializes the figure into abstraction by pinching wires and pulling them out to create tangles of cables reminiscent of electrical wires, although the energy passing through them is supernatural. The images that refer to the statuesque beauty of bodies transformed into icons are those to which global communication has accustomed us but which do not reflect the true nature of man, who instead becomes the protagonist. Drawing on the reflections of some leading intellectual figures in African American culture, such as the writer Ralph Ellison and the theorist Franz Fanon, Anderson denounces the substantial invisibility of black men outside the contexts of spectacularization proposed by the media and aspires to attribute a new narrative to black male identity.

Anderson’s interest in the cultural consequences of images begins in 2017 and reaches all the way up to his most recent works: works in the exhibition such as Make me come out myself (2021, 244x183 cm), Spectral Shout (2020-21, 198x145 cm) and Le Bron Van Trill Again (trillingen) (2020-21, 193x137 cm) are the result of impressive handwork in which the artist brings back to the contemporary the tradition of ancient tapestry, used as an alternative to painting to narrate scenes of daily life. But it is also the toil of the black people who, enslaved, harvest cotton that echoes in Anderson’s woven works, which thus seeks to reknit the threads of his origins. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog published by Mudima, with a critical text by Jade Barget.

Noel W. Anderson holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking from Indiana University and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University. He is head of printmaking in the Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions at New York University. Anderson uses media and artistic research to further his philosophical inquiry. His central theme is the reworking of the images society constructs about black masculine identity and celebrity. In 2018, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYFA), awarded Noel the “Artist Fellowship Grant”: a fellowship awarded in fifteen different disciplines for the purpose of funding an artist’s vision and voice and artistic development. In the same year he was the recipient of the prestigious Jerome Prize: a grant created by the Jerome Foundation with has the intent to contribute to a dynamic culture by supporting the creation, development and production of new works by emerging artists. His solo exhibition Blak Origin Moment debuted at the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati) in February 2017, and his monograph was recently published.

Image: Noel W. Anderson, Sarting Line up (2021; tapestry, 102 x 162 cm). Photo by Remi Villaggi

Milan exhibition of Noel W.'s tapestries. Anderson on the distorted narrative of black identity

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