BOOK: Faith Ringgold-American People, Phaidon Publications

Artist, author, educator, and organizer, Faith Ringgold is one of the most influential cultural figures of her generation, with a career linking the multi-disciplinary practices of the Harlem Renaissance to the political art of young Black artists working today. For sixty years, Ringgold has drawn from both personal autobiography and collective histories to both document her life as an artist and mother and to amplify the struggles for social justice and equity. From creating some of the most indelible artworks of the civil rights era to challenging accepted hierarchies of art versus craft through her experimental story quilts, Faith Ringgold has produced a body of work that bears witness to the complexity of the American experience. With new contributions by curators, writers, and artists across generations—including Diedrick Brackens, LeRonn Brooks, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Jordan Casteel, Bridget Cooks, Mark Godfrey, Lucy Lippard, Tschabalala Self, Michele Wallace, and Zoé Whitley, among others, this expansive survey titled “Faith Ringgold” American People” by Phaidon Publications, is accompanying her major retrospective at the New Museum, New York (17/2-5/6/2022), that examined the artist’s figurative style as it evolved to meet the urgency of political and social change. The exhibition also foregrounds her radical explorations of gender and racial identities, which the artist incorporates into the rich textures of her paintings, soft sculptures, and story quilts. Among the most important artworks of the past fifty years, Ringgold’s fabric works combine local traditions and global references to compose a polyphonic history of this country. Long overdue, this retrospective provides a timely opportunity to experience the art of an American icon.-Dimitris Lempesis