Description

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Large-scale textile works from a leading contemporary Afro-Caribbean American artist.
 
This is the first volume to document and contextualize Sonya Clark’s large-scale, community-centric and collaborative artworks. These projects demonstrate Clark’s career-long commitment to addressing the urgent issue of racial inequality in American society and her philosophy of creatively engaging the viewer in reflection on the nation’s history of slavery and our roles in dismantling systemic racism today.

As an extension of her abiding commitment to issues of history, race, and reconciliation in her work, Clark is also distinctive as an artist for her use of textiles and other everyday materials, which she aligns with the intertwined histories of art and craft. For marginalized people (African Americans and women, in particular) handwork has been essential to survival and consequently has functioned, and continues to function, as an important means of creating a group identity. Hence, for Clark, craft is essential to the question of equality.

About the Author

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Elissa Auther is deputy director of curatorial affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design. 

Laura Mott is chief curator of Cranbrook Art Museum. 

Monica Obniski is curator of decorative arts and design at the High Museum of Art. 

Renée Ater is provost visiting associate professor of Africana studies at Brown University. 

Leslie King-Hammond is founding director of the Center for Race and Culture at Maryland Institute College of Art. 

Lowery Stokes Sims is curator emerita at the Museum of Arts and Design.