Christina Quarles / W.E.B. Du Bois: Spirituals Strivings Two Works Series Vol. 4 - Ausst. Kat. Afterall, Central Saint Martins University of the Arts, London

In 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois's text The Souls of Black Folk made history as a work of sociological thought, and would go on to become a cornerstone of African American literature. In it, Du Bois combined music, history and memoir to advance a vital message of resistance in the uniquely dehumanising context of the so-called 'Jim Crow' era. It was in this collection that Du Bois, in 'Of Our Spiritual Strivings', wrote of the 'double consciousness' experienced by the Black subject - a 'sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity'. Refusing this fate, Du Bois passionately and creatively makes the case for the rights of Black people of the South to be treated with equality and justice.
Over a century later, artist Christina Quarles brings new energy to Du Bois's unfinished project, speaking to his melodious text with her own distinctive vibrancies of colour and line, testing and inverting the 'double consciousness' idea. Quarles, whose work is informed by her own daily experience with ambiguity, engages with the world from a position that is multiply situated.

About the author

Christina Quarles received an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2016 and holds a BA from Hampshire College. Quarles was a 2016 participant at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture. She was the inaugural recipient of the 2019 Peìrez Art Museum Miami Prize and in 2017 she received the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant.

Product details

• Publisher: König, Walther
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2021
• No. of pages: 92
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 211 mm x 12 mm
• Weight: 210 g
• Series: Two Works / Die Reihe „Two Works“ begegnet zeitgenössische Kunst dem geschriebenen Wort - Künstler reagieren auf wichtige literarische Texte. The „Two Works“ series engages with the visual work of art’s potential for creative encounter with the writt
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Plastic arts; Malerei und Gemälde, Zeitgenössische Kunst, Ausstellungskataloge, Museumskataloge und Sammlungen, Kunsttheorie, bildende Kunst, Zeichnen und Zeichnungen, The soul of black folk, Two Work Series, Afterall, W.E.B. DuBois, Christina Quarles