Shine Some Light on the Black

Musings on Kehinde Wiley and Notes of Rest

Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence. Bronze. (My photograph.)

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago, I had a set of shows in San Francisco with Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few. Because we played at night I was able to one day visit the de Young Art Museum for Kehinde Wiley’s harrowing “An Archaeology of Silence.” (You might know Wiley as the artist responsible for the presidential portrait of Barack Obama.) It was a breathtaking exhibit of Black bodies laying down in various poses, covered in flora and fauna. The body of work was meant to present Black folk as lying down either in a posture of repose, injury, or death.

I found the work both sad and hopeful. It was sad for several reasons. One, it is sad that Black folk often need to be reminded in art form that we are perpetually marked for death. Two, Black repose is oftentimes seen as laziness, which in the US is a cardinal sin, worthy of condemnation and/or cancellation. Three, because Wiley put Black folk in the positions of historic European protagonists, it was as if we were dying again within the matrix of the White legacy Kehinde was having us follow behind.

However, the work was hopeful because of how Kehinde portrayed light. The light in the pictures and sculptures reflected off the Black bodies in a way that suggested an otherworldly glow. In fact, part of his intention was to imbue Black flesh with a kind of sacrality historically reserved for the White Christ of European art. He presented this as a critique of the way whiteness has functioned in visual art, but did so in a way that was helpful for my understanding of God’s imaging of Black flesh. Black flesh, so often portrayed as merely condemned, here was portrayed as beautiful and worthy to be held.

The exhibit had resonances with Notes of Rest. The Notes of Rest that God gives us are received and shared amidst the relentless death perpetrated in the afterlife of the slave ship (see In the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe). This antiblackness death mars/marks us all - White folk, Black folk, Latinx folk, Asian folk, Indigenous folk, the Earth. And yet in the midst of this logic of death, where Black folk cannot rest, we can choose to look at Black flesh differently, to put it in a light of care versus a light of castigation.

The way Wiley took care of Black flesh is what Sharpe calls “wake work,” a “Black-on-Black” kind of care (a beautiful phrase from my dear friend Rev. Dr. Nick Peterson). I too engage in wake work by playing songs written by my people (e.g., Spirituals, Diana Ross) and/or stylized in ways my people have pioneered (improvisation, jazz and gospel voicings).

My hope is that you can help Black folk rest through how you treat yourself and how you treat the systems you control. And my further hope is that you can choose to see the image of God in Black folk when the world casts you/us as dead. Thank you for shining some light.

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As Notes of Rest continues growing within and beyond me, it is important that we have spaces to share our thoughts on our own rest practices such as what I discussed today. That is one reason I am starting the Notes of Rest Fellowship, an online community of folk intent on practicing the life of rest Jesus offers for us and others. Stay tuned for next week’s post with more details!

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next:

Dakarai Barclay Quartet: Today Jul 21, 6-8p, 3525 S MLK Drive

Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few: Tuesday Jul 25, 1-2p, Tuley Park in Chicago, 501 E 90th Pl

(Private) Theology & the Arts Consultation at Belmont University in Nashville: Jul 27-28

Notes of Rest Fellowship (Beta Mode) Launches Online: Aug 1

Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust (my original music) at Elastic Arts: Aug 2, 8p, Chicago (will be livestreamed)

Notes of Rest at The Practice Church in South Barrington, IL: Aug 6

Notes of Rest Virtual Class at Candler School of Theology, 5 consecutive Mondays starting Oct 9