Young, Gifted and Black
Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art
Vicki Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver
2121 E. Asbury Avenue, Denver, CO 80210
January 19–April 30, 2023
Admission: Free
Review by Djamila Ricciardi
Young, gifted and black
Oh what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black
Open your heart to what I mean…
So begins the song that Nina Simone performed with magisterial prowess throughout the second half of her career, introducing it before a receptive crowd at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. [1] Later she recorded a live version for the album Black Gold, released the following year. [2] The song quickly became a cultural touchstone and an anthem for a second-wave Civil Rights movement in the United States.
A view of the exhibition Young, Gift, and Black at the Vicki Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver. Image by DARIA.
The song’s lyrics still reverberate in the context of the contemporary Movement for Black Lives. It is therefore apt that the traveling exhibition currently on view at the University of Denver’s Vicki Myhren Gallery is titled Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. The exhibit presents forty artworks made over the last 35 years by an impressive bevy of artists, all of whom could be accurately described as young, gifted, and Black. Curated by Antwaun Sargent and Matt Wycoff, the “lovely precious dream” of this exhibition is to reflect and celebrate the diverse range of experiences within the Black cultural milieu while situating the collection as part of a larger, ongoing dialogue happening in the art world about power, representation, identity, and access.
A number of works displayed “salon style” in the Young, Gift, and Black exhibit at the Vicki Myhren Gallery. Image by DARIA.
A view from the right side of the Vicki Myhren Gallery of the exhibition Young, Gift, and Black. Image by DARIA.
Unlike other exhibitions in which the name of the person, entity, or foundation that has acquired the art on view fades to the background or is relegated to the fine print of a label or catalog page, the main story here is all about the Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. This includes its origins and, significantly, its unique “mission to collect community.” [5]
Samuel Levi Jones, Agency, 2018, football tackling pad covers on canvas, 30 x 30 x 2 inches. Image by DARIA.
A hefty monograph accompanies the exhibition and includes insightful essays by the curators and collectors, as well as interviews with many of the featured artists by noted scholars. In an introductory offering written in the first person, Bernard Lumpkin explains how the impulse to collect began as a way to honor his own heritage as a biracial Black man compelled by the legacy of his father, “a physicist, educator, and triathlete…a true renaissance man whose drive and talents carried him far from his modest beginnings.” [6]
Lumpkin goes on to say, “Following my father’s example of civic engagement, and also inspired by my early career as a television producer at MTV News, I saw that my role as a collector should be to help artists engage with, and educate, their communities…I realized that, like the artists I was supporting, I too needed to engage the community. It wasn’t enough to acquire art for my enjoyment at home. There needed to be a broader purpose.” [7]
Arcmanoro Niles, The Nights I Don't Remember, the Nights I Can't Forget, 2018, oil, acrylic, and glitter on canvas, 72 x 70 inches. Image by DARIA.
Although the collection that Lumpkin started along with his husband, Carmine Boccuzzi, in 2011 when they began living together was initially “eclectic, driven by personal tastes, and intended for private viewing,” [8] it became clear that the work needed to be seen outside of the couple’s upscale Tribeca loft in order to increase its impact in relationship to “larger conversations about culture, politics, and society.” [9] Thus, the process of collecting art became a form of social practice.
Jarrett Key, Key Family in the Garden, 2019, oil on cement (fresco), 9 x 12 inches. Image by DARIA.
The central tenet of the Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection is to reimagine the role of patronage and to utilize art collecting as a corrective tool—an intentional method to infuse a new and greater awareness of Black artists who push the contemporary art world forward. This art historical revisionism emphasizes the crucial role of individuals who have for too long been erased from the formal record or pushed to the farthest corners of more traditional art spaces.
In this way, the exhibition has an agenda; an ax to grind against the small coterie of collectors who prefer to operate in anonymity and the shadowy dealings of some institutions. But it is important to underline the fact that this is not some bespoke, art-world-friendly brand of wokeism. Rather, it is a refreshing acknowledgement that just as no work of art can ever be considered apolitical, the act of collecting is never neutral.
Kerry James Marshall, Den Mother, 1996, acrylic and charcoal paper, 39 x 37.75 inches. Image by DARIA.
As a whole, it is evident that Young, Gifted and Black is an ensemble work. A unified effect is achieved through the thoughtfully arranged salon-style wall of portraits that dominate the back of the gallery. That said, there is something for everyone to connect with here. The showcased work is dizzyingly expansive and diverse. It includes drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and videos that “speak broadly to the notion of community as the site of multiple narratives, identities, and histories that, while rooted in the specific experiences of blackness, address the universal.” [10]
Jordan Casteel, Kenny, 2014, oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches. Image by DARIA.
There is also intergenerational crosstalk at play. Some more well-known figures like Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, and Lorna Simpson share space with up-and-coming artists like Denver’s own Jordan Casteel. There are unabashed depictions of joy and love in all its forms, while at the same time the curatorial vision does not shy away from including the tragic spectacle of trauma as well. The art is collectively transcendent and beautiful; profound and profane.
Vaughn Spann, Radiant Sunshine, The Morning After (For Lula), 2017, oil and acrylic on paper, 99.38 x 76.25 inches. Image by DARIA.
Take, for instance, Vaughn Spann’s Radiant Sunshine, The Morning After (For Lula) which beckons the viewer to hover in front of the large-scale work like a bumblebee, lulled by the dreamy rush of tangerine and sunshine yellow. The work consists of four large sheets of paper, presents a dazzling array of painted flowers, and evokes the warmth of a summer day. Along the far right edge are the words “white diamond” which emerge from out of nowhere. Perhaps it is the label from an old perfume bottle now functioning as a makeshift vase. In the upper left corner, there appears to be a swarm of butterflies, or are they locusts? This kaleidoscopic floral arrangement represents beauty for beauty’s sake, yet it still contains an ominous edge, a hint of what’s to come, a reminder that nothing lasts forever.
Jennifer Packer, Untitled, 2011-13, oil on canvas, 42 x 30 inches. Image by DARIA.
Further along, a fascinating portrait by Jennifer Packer presents a ghostlike form. Untitled is an oil painting, although it looks like a delicate watercolor with translucent qualities. A figure, we presume, looks directly at us although we cannot return the direct gaze since the only features that remain distinct are the fingers of the left hand and a trace of the belt. The rest of the body dissolves before our eyes, like the way silver nitrate from old film stock disintegrates over time. This work is one of several that meditate on the idea of presence and erasure.
Tomashi Jackson, Magnet School 1, 2014, acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, 36 x 25.5 inches. Image by DARIA.
Tomashi Jackson’s Magnet School 1 and Troy Michie’s Dematerialization also call attention to the duality of loss and belonging, disappearance and closeness, and omission and creation with collage-like compositions. But, perhaps more directly to the point, the 2019 piece At any time prior to no later than by Nari Ward pushes the concept of deletion to a literal conclusion. Using a heavy hand and lots of jet black stencil ink, Ward effectively erases the images of NBA players from individual basketball cards, leaving nothing but the lonely spherical basketballs suspended in a dark and mysterious void.
Nari Ward, At any time prior to no later than, 2019, stencil ink and basketball cards on paper, 24.5 x 32 inches. Image courtesy of Lehigh University.
By combining all the cards together, he creates a complete work that reminds one of a constellation of stars clustered in a deep space photograph. There is no longer a trace of the human figures who were once there, but instead something else remains. This work is similar to a blackout poem that uses a found piece of writing, then through selecting and isolating short phrases and redacting existing text creates something lyrical and resonant. It is a highly conceptual visual poem.
A detail image of Wilmer Wilson IV’s Pres, 2017, staples and pigment print on wood, 96 x 48 x 1.5 inches. Image by DARIA.
Similarly, artist Wilmer Wilson IV nearly obliterates the figures in Pres with a mind-bogglingly dense layering of countless staples. As with Packer’s Untitled, two figures’ hands are exposed while holding Dixie cups. One person also has a cigarette dangling between their fingers. The staples create folds, shadows, and something resembling movement. The process is tedious and manual, and the effect is otherworldly yet strangely familiar to anyone who has walked by a frequently used utility pole, a common feature in the urban environment, pockmarked with holes and heavy with the accumulation of so many desperate postings.
Kevin Beasley, Wrong, 2013, resin, body pillows, T-shirt, and hooded sweatshirt, 30 x 25 x 20 inches. Image by DARIA.
There is an undeniable emotional dimension to the work that makes up this collection, which is epitomized in Kevin Beasley’s floor sculpture Wrong, composed of resin, body pillows, a T-shirt, and hooded sweatshirt. For this artist, “cotton is not just a material, it is a theme that touches on politics, social relationships, and of course, economics and reparations.” [11] In turn, the hoodie itself is a charged object that brings to mind the long history of ugly assumptions about the criminality of Black youth in particular, and the often deadly conclusion of racial profiling. How much significance a simple garment can have depends on who is wearing it and what neighborhood they are in.
Though somewhat abstract, it’s nearly impossible not to read this object as a mangled, bloated body lying lifeless on the ground. We may project on this dark and pustulent form the idea of victimhood, of profound and inexplicable hate. If that is so, we must not turn away. We must look even more closely to see the care with which the hoodie is zipped up, like an unseen mother swaddling her baby in a Pietà.
You are young, gifted and black
We must begin to tell our young
There's a world waiting for you
Yours is the quest that's just begun
This exhibition, like the song it borrows its title from, is a lyrical message that speaks to the urgency of the moment while offering a vision of the future. Young, Gifted and Black illuminates and inspires viewers to not only look at contemporary art in a new light, but to also get curious about Black contemporary artists living and working in their own communities.
Djamila Ricciardi is a fifth generation Denverite who is actively involved in the local arts community. She graduated with a degree in Art History from Scripps College in Claremont, CA and is an appreciator of all forms of creative expression.
[1] “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_Young,_Gifted_and_Black.
[2] Weldon Jonathan Irvine Jr. (October 27, 1943–April 9, 2002), also known as Master Wel, was an American composer, playwright, poet, pianist, organist, and keyboardist who was Nina Simone’s bandleader for many years. He wrote the lyrics for "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," which was recorded live for the first time by Simone on the album Black Gold (1970): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weldon_Irvine.
[3] From the introductory wall text for Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art.
[4] Featured artists include: Adam Pendleton, Adrian Piper, Allison Janae Hamilton, Alteronce Gumby, Bethany Collins, Chanel Chiffon Thomas, Cy Gavin, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, David Hammons, Deana Lawson, Derrick Adams, Ellen Gallagher, Eric N. Mack, Gerald Sheffield, Glenn Ligon, Henry Taylor, Jennifer Packer, Jordan Casteel, Kara Walker, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Kerry James Marshall, Jarrett Key, Kevin Beasley, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lonnie Holley, Lorna Simpson, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Mickalene Thomas, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Rashid Johnson, Sable Elyse Smith, Sadie Barnette, Samuel Levi Jones, Tavares Strachan, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Troy Michie, Vaughn Spann, Wardell Milan, William Villalongo, and Wilmer Wilson IV.
[5] Antwaun Sargent et al., Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art (New York: D.A.P, 2020), p. 18.
[6] Ibid, p. 9.
[7] Ibid, p.12.
[8] Ibid, p.19.
[9] Coco Romack, “This NYC Loft Features a Trove of Pivotal Work by Black Artists,” Architectural Digest, 19 Aug. 2020: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/young-gifted-and-black-nyc-loft.
[10] Sargent, Young, Gifted and Black, p. 29.
[11] Artnet News, “'They Become Ways of Telling Stories': Watch Artist Kevin Beasley Make Thought-Provoking Works from Cast-off Materials.” Artnet News, 5 Jan, 2023: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art21-kevin-beasley-2238872.
