“Shattered Glass” Makes its Miami Debut

JEFFREY DEITCH: This project started when we attended AJ's passionate talk at The Broad about the “Soul of The Nation” exhibition, which was really an amazing experience. I said to AJ, "We have to do something together." So Melahn and AJ started a dialogue and the result was “Shattered Glass,” which was presented last spring in Los Angeles. 

This show represents an important paradigm shift in art. When I entered the art world in the 1970s, art was a very insider experience, and the public wasn’t really invited in. But the dynamic is different now, and for this generation, artists want to make art about their families, their communities, their own identity. And with that, I'll hand it over to the exhibition's co-curator, AJ Girard.

AJ GIRARD: Thanks so much Jeffrey. To get things started, Melahn, tell me how “Shattered Glass” came about and what it meant to you.

MELAHN FRIERSON: Jeffrey had been asking me to do a show for a while, but then the pandemic hit and all of our friends’ shows got canceled or postponed. Then they were being asked to create reactionary art towards everything we were seeing going on in the world. It wasn't just asking, it was more like, “Make this angry artwork or this sad traumatic artwork,” which as people of color is all we ever see. So we wanted to showcase all the joy, love, community and friendships in our lives, because those are the things that bring us together and get us through the daily trials.

There were so many coincidences with the show that we had no idea about, like artists that had previously become friends or had gone to school together. I think the exhibition resonated because it was an act of love and something we all needed to see. AJ gave these amazing daily tours that brought in the community and made them feel safe in these big, intimidating settings, which I think is really important and something we need to continue to do.

AJ GIRARD: Angelo [Baque], what excited you about this project? How does it paint a picture of the worlds you grew up in?

ANGELO BAQUE: The first thing I felt when I walked into Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles was that I felt seen for the first time. I'm 43 years old, and this embrace of youth and change has never looked like me or Tremaine [Emory] or anybody that's up here sitting with us. We've never been at the forefront of the narrative. 

What we've been doing on the fashion side—myself, Tremaine, Shaniqwa Jarvis, Chris Gibbs from Union Los Angeles—is paying it forward and trying to be as transparent and open with our resources; this is why we've been doing what we've been doing collectively for the last 20 years. I finally felt comfortable inside of a gallery space and it felt like a cookout. 

TREMAINE EMORY: I took my friend Nigel [to “Self-Addressed”], who’s African American via Trinidad and grew up in Jamaica, Queens. He never met his dad and his mom died from being shot in the head when he was eight weeks old. He was homeless for a while and spent about 10 years in jail. Now, he has a beautiful daughter, Lexi. 

When we walked through “Shattered Glass,” he saw a painting by Amani Lewis of a Black man with his daughter. That's probably the first time that's ever happened in the history of America, where a guy who spent 10 years of life in jail, is Black, has no parents, is a parent and a construction worker, walks into a gallery as prestigious as Jeffrey Deitch and sees something that not just looks like him, but that one to one represents what he's most proud of. That's what “Shattered Glass” was.

AJ GIRARD: I get very inspired listening to both of these gentlemen and so many other people in this room. For me, these are people whom I felt were on the other side of the conversation. They had already won, they were the icons, they were the beaming light. Until I saw the work that me and Melahn were doing, I didn’t realize how hard it was for that to become a normal narrative. 

This week has been shadowed by so much inspiration and so much otherworldly energy from people who’ve really paved the way for us. With that, I want to introduce two artists from this community: Murjoni Merriweather from Maryland and Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. from LA. Can you both tell us why “Shattered Glass'' was important to you? 

MURJONI MERRIWEATHER: Growing up, I've always seen museums and galleries representing non-people of color. And if they did represent people of color, we weren't represented in a way that was relatable. I always want my work to be relatable. I want people to look at my work and be like, "Wow, that looks like me. That looks like my cousin. That looks like somebody I know." “Shattered Glass” brought that. 

ALFONSO GONZALEZ JR.: The show was very special to me because a lot of people in my community were all working towards the same thing during the pandemic. So to celebrate it with the opening, a Miami edition and now this panel is very special, and like some of the other people said, this is the first large show in a space like this where we felt seen. 

AJ GIRARD: To Melahn's earlier point, the show grew from the position of these artists knowing each other and referring to each other, then it became about telling the biggest picture possible. Because everybody was like, "A group show with 40 or 50 of y'all, that's pushing it." But we realized that if we didn't do this now, it probably would never, ever happen, so we added as many people as possible.

We had many younger emerging artists and we had some older established artists, but some of the older established artists had important narratives that had never been told before. Today, we have one of those names among us: Mr. Wash. 

FULTON LEROY “MR. WASH” WASHINGTON: Over 26 years ago, I was falsely accused and sentenced to life without parole in federal prison. So when I hear AJ speak about shattering glass, I have to thank God for the spirit that he gave me and the energy and tenacity to continue to fight in front of thousands of men who had no hope, who didn’t believe, in 2007 when I painted Obama as the President of the United States, that in 2008 he would get elected. We shattered the glass then. And it continued on. I painted Joe Biden as the president in 2014 when I was in prison. Again, we shattered the glass and I had no idea at that time I’d be entering an exhibition called “Shattered Glass.”  

I also thank God for my hands because I didn't know how to paint in oil paints when I went to prison. My story is one of a human spirit going on the journey of life without fear or prejudice.

AJ GIRARD: One of the ways we thought about organizing the show was by responding to trauma and tragic stories with positive joy, but also by honoring some of those unwritten stories, much like Mr. Wash’s, through painting, sculpture, video and sound. We have another artist I want to introduce, Thelonious, whose story is one I've never heard before. Can you introduce yourself?

THELONIOUS: I’m from Chicago, Illinois and currently based in Florence, Italy. I consider Black figuration as the apotheosis of modern art, and I say that because we have not had the representation we deserve for hundreds of years. My pieces in “Shattered Glass” include a postmortem image of Louis Till and Emmett Till. Emmett Till's father passed away 12 years before Emmett Till died in a similar fashion. He was a soldier stationed in Livorno, Italy during World War II. He was accused of raping three white women, and he was hunted down and lynched by an Italian lynch mob before his trial. 

Louis Till left behind a metal ring with a date on it. I believe it's May 25, 1943. Nobody knows the actual meaning of that date, but this ring was his only remains. It was then sent to Mamie Till, Emmett Till's mother, and 12 years later it was given to Emmett Till as a family heirloom right before he went to Mississippi. Everybody knows the notorious story of Emmett Till, who was tortured and murdered, but not many people know they both were murdered in the same ring. I think my work is the only living image of Emmett Till and his father, so that in itself is a historical moment. And I believe that Black figuration is our way to shatter the glass.

AJ GIRARD: This exhibition reminds us that we represent life, that we are life, that there's so much life that we should appreciate. It really speaks to Black and brown artists drawing outside of the line, like women being able to step up and be powerful and ferocious on purpose. And beyond the powerful work on display, we’re gathered to talk about not only the art, but how that art is collected, experienced and how it lives on. I know you’ve spoken up on this topic before, Tremaine.

TREMAINE EMORY: Because Black and brown art is hot right now, really rich, small groups of people buy it, and when they have to liquefy their stock options, they put the art somewhere so they don't have to pay taxes. And then you never see the stuff again. That's why you see, “Oh, there's a never-seen-before Basquiat." Because it's been sitting in a crate for almost as long as he's been in a casket.

These same images that are inspiring you and giving you chills, and that look just like you, they go into crates and boxes. If we create our own galleries and we institute nepotism and give validation without it having to come from the blue-chip, white art world, then this stuff doesn't have to disappear. 

So learn about the art world because there's a deeper thing going on with what happens to it. This art is what’s representing us, and it's disappearing quickly. Do some reading about it, and if you know someone that's selling a painting for a hundred bucks and you like it, don't think, “Is it going to be worth more?” Just buy it because you like it and keep the money in our system, because right now the money is going out and the art is going out.