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Hi all,

Earlier I responded to Maryly, but not the whole group:

My name is Carly, I am the librarian at Glenstone Museum. It is definitely frustrating that the exhibition did not provide transcripts of the text on the quilts, and I am very surprised that they did not have a Faith Ringgold catalogue available in the shop—I know that there are multiple catalogues from this traveling exhibition, one from the Serpentine, Glenstone, and the New Museum. I guess it is always possible that they sold out of catalogues because Faith Ringgold is so fantastic and there is so much to learn about her life and practice—it is also possible that the DeYoung Museum is going to create their own catalogue but there are delays with publication?

I am not sure about the other iterations of the Faith Ringgold exhibition, but Glenstone had transcripts for some of the quilts available during the show. If anyone is interested in reading the transcripts, they are available as PDFs on Glenstone’s website along with the wall didactics- past exhibitions-->Faith Ringgold.<https://www.glenstone.org/faith-ringgold/> I am not sure if every quilt in the DeYoung Museum is represented here, but there should be quite a bit of overlap.

All the best,
Carly



Carly Davis
Librarian
Pronouns: she, her, hers

Glenstone Museum
(301) 299-1285
12100 Glen Road
Potomac, Maryland 20854
[cid:[log in to unmask]]

From: ARLIS/NA List <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Laurence McGilvery
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2022 2:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARLIS-L] Faith Ringgold exhibition catalog


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Dear Maryly,

"Called out and rectified," indeed. How could this issue not have come up in 2019, unless there is some overwhelming obstacle that we cannot know? Perhaps you should send your letter to all five museums. What a great project transcribing all that text would have been for a trainee or two. I don't understand the lack of a catalogue. I can guarantee it would have sold vigorously. Perhaps you should write D.A.P. and see if they can do it posthumously, while the works are still together and available.

With warm regards (and guard those knees, oh please),

Larry
On 11/9/22 6:57 PM, Maryly Snow wrote:
I went to the Faith Ringgold exhibit at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco today.
It is an excellent show, but a little frustrating. Most of her quilts carry a large amount
of writing, her hand-written texts. The texts are written on the white fabric. Here are 2 representative samples:
[At the New Museum, a Long-Overdue              Showcase for the Great ...][Faith Ringgold | The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at              Arles (1996) | Available for Sale | Artsy]

It is very difficult to read the texts, as they are either 10’ above the floor or
close to the floor, 1’ or 2’ above the floor. And the museum labels did not reveal the full
texts either.

I couldn’t wait to go to the museum store, hoping to find a book, a smallish
book or the catalog to read the full texts for each quilt reproduction.

Nope! Nada!

I couldn’t help think that the lack of accessible text in print form created by the various
museum curators was disrespectful. Her works are very political and historical.
Her subject matter is clearly racism. Some of the texts that I did manage
to read (oh, my creaking knees) were didactic, opinionated. Some were
fantasies and stories. Some explicated the painting itself.

The exhibit, as far as I can tell, was initiated by the Serpentine in London in 2019.
In 2020 the exhibition was at the Bildmuseet, Sweden. In 2021 The Glenstone Museum.
In 2022 the New Museum in the first half of the year, and the De Young Museum for the
2nd half of 2022.

Some of the archival materials included her typed polemics from the 60s and 70s on how few women compared to men were exhibited, and how few of the women were black. Her gender and race were clearly important to her, and were amplfied in a variety of ways in her texts in the quilts.

I think this deserves to be called out for what it is, and rectified.

Have reviews mentioned this?
Am I just a cranky old lady? (Retired from ARLIS/NA and my job in 2006)
I don’t think so!

Maryly Snow
ARLIS/NA Retiree’s SIG



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Laurence McGilvery

Member: Antiquarian Booksellers

Association of America

P. O. Box 852

La Jolla, California 92038

(858) 454-4443

[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> (public)

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www.mcgilvery.com<http://www.mcgilvery.com>

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