Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00357

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23679

Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction is a fascinating examination of the multifaceted career of artist, activist, curator, and writer Howardena Pindell (b. 1943). It offers a fresh perspective on her abstract practice from the late 1960s through the early 1980s—a period in which debates about Black Power, feminism, and modernist abstraction intersected in uniquely contentious yet generative ways. Sarah Louise Cowan not only asserts Pindell’s rightful place within the canon but also recenters dominant historical narratives to reveal the profound and overlooked roles that Black women artists have played in shaping modernist abstraction. Pindell’s career acts as a springboard for a broader study of how artists have responded during periods of heightened social activism and used abstraction to convey political urgency. With works that drew on Ghanaian textiles, administrative labor, cosmetics, and postminimalism, Pindell deployed abstraction in deeply personal ways that resonated with collective African diasporic and women’s practices. In her groundbreaking analysis, Cowan argues that such work advanced Black feminist modernisms, diverse creative practices that unsettle racist and sexist logics.

“A deeply informative, inventive monograph that adroitly traces Pindell’s multi-media practice, the intermingling evolution of her aesthetic and political positions, and the critical context in which her work was received and evaluated.”—Blake Oetting, caa.reviews

*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal.*

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date November 2022 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300264296

EISBN 9780300275537

Illustrations 110

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Carnival at Ostende
Carnival at Ostende, detail
Untitled (#7)
Untitled #20 (Dutch Wives Circled and Squared)
Untitled #20 (Dutch Wives Circled and Squared), detail
War shirt (batakari)
Untitled
Autobiography: Earth (Eyes, Injuries)
Reaching for Center
Untitled (Frustula series)
Unite
Revolutionary Sister
Space Frame #3
Space Frame
Space Frame
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled, detail
Untitled
Consume #2
Mach II
Untitled, detail
Howardena Pindell spraying paint through a stencil at her studio
Swing
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled, detail
Décor for Summerspace
Robert Kovitch and Chris Komar in Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace
Jihad Nation
Easter Sunday
Installation view of the exhibition Contemporary Black Artists in America at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 6–May 16, 1971
Untitled
Sangre de Christo
Space Frame, detail
Untitled
Untitled #58
Untitled #2
Spatial concept (Concetto spaziale)
The Dove
Untitled
Memorial—Homage to Martin Luther King
War cap
Untitled #4
Untitled
Untitled #3
Untitled #3, detail
Untitled #20
Untitled photograph of Howardena Pindell
Untitled #20, detail
Untitled hole-punch stencil, detail
Konstruktion/Perforation New York (Construction/perforation New York)
Untitled
Untitled, detail
Untitled
Installation view of the exhibition African Textiles and Decorative Arts at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 11, 1972–January 31, 1973
Untitled #19
Untitled
Feast Day of Iemanja II, December 31, 1980
Untitled #19, detail
Installation view of the exhibition African Textiles and Decorative Arts at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 11, 1972–January 31, 1973
Untitled
Hang Up
Untitled photograph of Howardena Pindell in her studio on West Street in front of Untitled (1968–70)
Untitled (Talcum Powder)
Untitled #69
Untitled #84
Untitled #84, detail
Untitled
Howardena Pindell with a cut and sewn painting and quilt in her studio
R. S. V. P. 1
Patching Up
New York: Night Light
New York: Night Light, detail
For Kate
Free, White and 21
Free, White and 21
Free, White and 21
Free, White and 21
Free, White and 21
Free, White and 21
Free, White and 21
Scrap of Video Drawings template
Video Drawings: Hockey
Video Drawings: Swimming
Video Drawings: Baseball
Video Drawings: Track
Winky Dink and You, a children’s television program
Video Drawings: Science Fiction (Flash Gordon)
Caught in the Act
Caught in the Act: Choreography IV—In the Grand Manner (Short Tutu)
Kennedy Funeral
Yes–No
Artists and Artworkers poster
Telegram from the Emergency Coalition to Artists Space
The Mythic Being
Free, White and 21
Memory: Past
Memory: Future
Autobiography: Water/Ancestors/Middle Passage/Family Ghosts
#108 Memory Series: Sorry, It Was an Accident
Memory Test: Free, White and Plastic (#114)
Separate but Equal Genocide: AIDS
Night Flight
Ko's Snow Day
Ko's Snow Day, detail
Canals/Underground Railroad
Joshua
Joshua, detail
My Father’s FBI File: Government Employees Installation

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Contents

Contents

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23680

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Acknowledgments

~So many people helped this book come into being. My deepest appreciation goes to Howardena Pindell for her generosity across our conversations and correspondence. She shared her artworks and experiences with me from the earliest days of research. Her work as an artist, activist, and thinker has been a deep well of inspiration not only for this project,...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23681

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Introduction

Howardena Pindell (b. 1943) arrived in New York in 1967, skeptical of the city and her prospects for work. Fresh from the MFA program in painting at Yale University, the young artist associated the widely accepted cultural capital of the United States with the career ambitions of the white men in her graduating class....

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.1-31

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.003571

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23682

Chapter subject tags:Pindell, Howardena, 1943-Painting, Abstract--20th centuryBlack feminismModernism (Art)--United StatesAfrican diasporaWomen artists, Black

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1. Moving Modernisms

~~In 1969, artist Howardena Pindell carted several of her paintings uptown to the Studio Museum in Harlem. The recently opened institution, situated in a predominantly Black neighborhood, was established to provide quality exhibition space...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.33-81

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.003572

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23683

Chapter subject tags:Pindell, Howardena, 1943-Painting, Abstract--20th centuryModernism (Art)--United StatesFeminism and art--United StatesBlack Arts movementArt museums--Exhibitions

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2. Paper Work

~~Howardena Pindell completed a spray-painted canvas in 1973 that, at first glance, largely resembles the nearly two dozen she had made over the course of the previous three years. Deep maroons and violets serve as...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.83-129

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.003573

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23684

Chapter subject tags:Pindell, Howardena, 1943-Collage, American--20th centuryPostminimal artFeminism and art--United StatesAfrican diaspora in artHandicraft

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3. Mending Abstraction

~~In 1976, Howardena Pindell began making paintings by cutting strips of canvas, sewing them together into a large rectangular grid, and covering them with collaged and painted materials to form an abstract field.The first of...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.131-175

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.003574

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23685

Chapter subject tags:Pindell, Howardena, 1943-Painting, Abstract--20th centuryBlack feminismAfrican diaspora in artWest African influencesTextile fabrics in art

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4. Screen, Skin

~In New York’s record-breaking heat during the summer of 1980, Howardena Pindell “couldn’t shake” an idea—she needed to see herself in a blond wig. This nagging image could not be conveyed via her usual methods of art-making; Pindell considered...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.177-221

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.003575

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23686

Chapter subject tags:Pindell, Howardena, 1943-Film installations (Art)Racism in artBlack feminismMass media and art

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Conclusion

~Pindell’s orientation toward the complex spectrum of abstraction and representation began to shift in 1979. Over the next decade, her fully abstract paintings and works on paper...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.223-242

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.003576

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23687

Chapter subject tags:Pindell, Howardena, 1943-Painting, Abstract--20th centuryMemory in artAutobiography in artRacism in artBlack feminism

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