Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties

Accompanying a highly anticipated exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, this thoughtful catalog of brilliantly wide-ranging aesthetics explores the complex relations between visual art and the fight for racial justice. Taking as its occasion the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the text moves away from rote historical narratives, instead opting to focus on the role of the photographer in shaping action and emergent discourses, of the influence of Ghana and Cuba on politics and aesthetics, and of the tensions of politics in Pop art. These thoughtful essays help guide what might otherwise be an overwhelming diversity of images, including a David Hammons body print, an iconic poster by Emory Douglas, Betye Saar assemblages, and Norman Rockwell paintings, among many others. The images themselves, brought into conversation with one another, are a valuable and resonant resource, allowing not only a deeper understanding of art from the 1960s, but of the ongoing historical reality of race in the United States. As Cynthia A. Young points out in one essay, the Civil Rights Movement was not monolithic: "In fact, it encompassed a series of movements%E2%80%A6 with sometimes similar and often vastly different strategies, goals, and outcomes". In guiding us to better understand this reality, this book is exciting and successful. Color illustrations. (Mar.)