11 May 25-31, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | Culture | Cafe | MusiC | miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Past Is Present Lonnie Holley shines a light on old wounds at MOCA. BY SEAN LEVISMAN “ Art is a wound turned into light,” said the seminal French painter Georges Braque. Currently on view at the Mu- seum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, through October, Lonnie Holley’s ca- reer-spanning exhibition “If You Really Knew” amply shows an artist’s capacity for turning wounds into bright, illuminating light. Of course, some wounds are collective. When Lonnie Holley was growing up in Bir- mingham, Alabama, in the Jim Crow South, life was wounding for Black people. In addi- tion to legalized segregation and systemic discrimination, Black people were routinely subjected to harassment, threats, and physi- cal violence. If it wasn’t the Ku Klux Klan perpetrating acts of terror and intimidation against Black communities, it was law en- forcement itself. On May 2, 1963, Birmingham children of Holley’s age and younger were blasted with fire hoses, clubbed, and attacked by police dogs during the grim Children’s Crusade. This unspeakable event would finally compel Presi- dent John F. Kennedy to publicly support fed- eral civil rights legislation, clearing the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Fire hoses feature prominently in Holley’s work, including The Water This Time, a jar- ring found-object sculpture. Once emblem- atic of state-sponsored terror, the decommissioned and now impotent fire hose hangs loosely on a wooden cross, with most of it crumpled up like yesterday’s newspaper in the waste bin of history at the bottom. Per- haps the artist is jabbing our amnesic collec- tive memory to recall these atrocities lest we repeat them. After all, history does tend to re- peat itself, with Black Lives Matter protesters physically brutalized by tear gas and rubber bullets in 2020, for example. Other wounds are more personal, yielding art that is much more beautiful. Holley’s “Sandstone” series is not as conceptual as some of his other work in the exhibition, but these precious, delicately hand-carved sculp- tures are imbued with layers of meaning and history like sacred totems. The “sandstone” is a soft, sandstone-like material made of sand, clay, and industrial remnants discarded by Birmingham’s once- flourishing steel industry. Its decline during the 1970s devastated the city’s Black work- force, only exacerbating economic and racial inequality. But even more poignant is the fact that Holley first used the material in 1979 to carve tombstones for his sister’s two children after they died in a house fire. What Women Are Afraid to Lose (The Fires on Our Planet) is a fiery mixed-media paint- ing on quilt and a nod to the feminist art tra- dition. The issue of women’s historical struggle for bodily autonomy, once more in- flamed by recent anti-abortion legislation, touches a personal nerve for Holley. To this day, the artist remains haunted by his mem- ory of a mother who gave birth to an incredi- ble number of children — 27 in total (he was the seventh) — and endured a lifetime of bleak physical and mental health as a result. Holley believes that his mother gave him away when he was 4 years old and that nameless handlers later traded him for a bottle of whiskey. The artist’s childhood was dismal, spent in and out of foster care when not homeless. Although Holley’s work is now in perma- nent museum collections around the country and has even been displayed at the White House, this is the celebrated septuagenarian artist’s first major exhibition in the South. (Hol- ley’s work was exhibited at NSU Art Museum in 2021 as part of the museum’s group show “Art of Assemblage.”) It’s certainly a long overdue dis- tinction for this son of the South whose art sings so bitterly and sweetly about the region’s histor- ical wounds, which are also his own. Holley’s influence on Southern art is high- lighted in this exhibition through the addi- tion of works from a cohort of regional artists he has championed throughout his career, in- cluding Miami native Purvis Young, Thorn- ton Dial, Mary T. Smith, and Hawkins Bowling. Of course, “If You Really Knew” is not the only reason to visit MOCA this summer. In its adjacent “South Florida Cultural Consor- tium” exhibition, visitors can discover eye- opening work from 12 intergenerational South Florida artists spanning sculpture, film, and site-specific installations. “Lonnie Holley: If You Really Knew.” On view through October 1, at the Museum of Contem- porary Art, North Miami, 770 NE 125th St., North Miami; 305-893-6211; mocanomi.org. Tickets cost $5 to $10; admission is free for members and North Miami residents. [email protected] ▼ Culture HOLLEY’S INFLUENCE ON SOUTHERN ART IS HIGHLIGHTED IN THE EXHIBITION. Installation view of “If You Really Knew” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami Photo by Zachary Balber
