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The breadth of Lisa Whittington’s work is deeply calculated and heavily coded. She seeks to present the value in documenting life, culture, history, and experience yet the depth of her work expands well beyond the surface intentions of “documentation” and truly exists in conversation with these ideas. Lisa Whittington’s work has been at the forefront of a dialogue involving appropriation of Black suffering into profit and fun by white artists as well as in conversation with the posturing nature of the artworld in regard to the black perspective.
As a black female artist in America, her voice in context with the historical canon is vital to disrupting monocultural understandings of history while simultaneously altering our current record-keeping habits with the inclusion of multiple voices. Artists like Lisa Whittington are not only the purveyors of culture, they are the new keepers of history.
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DECODING WHITTINGTON'S WORK
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Under A Soprano Sky (2018)
Full of connecting narratives, symbolism, and memories about place, “Under a Soprano Sky” is a documentary artwork that creatively details the history, trials, and the resilience of generations of African American people as they are originally uprooted from one place and brought to another . This artwork is one to study and think about each detail and features the very reflective “Harlem Baby” --a central figure found in numerous pieces of Lisa Whittington’s work as she uses the picture to help her narrate the histories of African Americans through art.
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See More Lisa Whittington
Lisa Whittington: An in depth look at Artist of the Month Lisa Whittington's artistry.
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