Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water

OCT 16, 2020 – MAR 28, 2021
An exhibition about the brutality of racism and the healing power of art
Installation view: Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water, October 16, 2020 – March 28, 2021. Photo: Kelly Marshall.
An installation view of abstract paintings in the exhibition Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. Two blue and blue-green canvases are on adjacent walls with a curvilinear yellow canvas peeking through a gap in the walls.
Installation view: Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water, October 16, 2020 – March 28, 2021. Photo: Lily Wan.
An installation view of abstract paintings in the exhibition Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. Three rectangular off-white canvases from the 1970s hang in a row beside a curvilinear abstract canvas.
Installation view: Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water, October 16, 2020 – March 28, 2021. Photo: Kelly Marshall.
An installation view of two thematic paintings in the exhibition Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. A gallery visitor looks at two square black paintings on adjacent walls while another visitor crosses the space in the background. The black paintings have text applied to their surfaces and objects arranged at their bases.
Installation view: Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water, October 16, 2020 – March 28, 2021. Photo: Lily Wan.
An installation view of abstract paintings in the exhibition Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. The curvilinear and rectangular canvases progress from two works predominantly in white, to a yellow canvas, to a green rectangular painting with irregular edges facing the camera on the far wall.
Howardena Pindell, Ko’s Snow Day, 2020. Mixed media on canvas. 55 ¼ x 65 inches. Commissioned by The Shed. Courtesy the artist, Garth Greenan Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery. Installation view: Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water, October 16, 2020 – March 28, 2021. Photo: Kelly Marshall.
Two gallery visitors standing staggered from one another look at a curvilinear abstract painting in the exhibition Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. The painting is a pale purple and its surface is covered in glitter, paper dots, and geometric forms that give it texture and depth.
Installation view: Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water, October 16, 2020 – March 28, 2021. Photo: Kelly Marshall.

About this commission

“Reigning over them all is Rope/Fire/Water, an overdue survey of Howardena Pindell’s alternating forays into abstract painting and politics…”
—“The Most Important Moments in Art in 2020,” The New York Times

“She has used her work to confront pain and embrace pleasure.”
The New York Times

“Shedding Light on Injustice in America”
Time

For her solo exhibition at The Shed, Howardena Pindell will present Rope/Fire/Water, her first video in 25 years and a project unrealized by the artist since the 1970s that The Shed commissioned. In this powerful work, Pindell recounts personal anecdotes and anthropological and historical data related to lynchings and racist attacks in the United States. She accompanies this voice-over with archival photos of lynchings and the historic Birmingham, Alabama, Children’s Crusade, a series of nonviolent protests carried out by young people in May 1963.

Over her nearly 60-year career, Pindell has created richly textured abstract paintings while engaging with politics and the social issues of her time. In the exhibition, Pindell will also debut a pair of large-scale paintings related to global atrocities of imperialism and white supremacy, and several abstract paintings that demonstrate a through line in Pindell’s practice: after working on traumatic historical projects, the artist decompresses by creating meticulously produced, large-scale abstract works on unstretched canvas.

Organized by Adeze Wilford, Assistant Curator

Artist

The artist Howardena Pindell sitting in front of one of her painting "Nautilus #1", a curvilinear, yellow, abstract canvas. Pindell wears a colorful cardigan over a dark-colored shirt.
Photo: Nathan Keay.
Howardena Pindell
Howardena Pindell
Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Howardena Pindell studied painting at Boston University and Yale University. She then worked for 12 years at the Museum of Modern Art (1967 – 79) as an exhibition assistant, an assistant curator in the Department of National and International Traveling Exhibitions, and finally as an associate curator and acting director in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books. In 1979, she began teaching at the State University of New York, Stony Brook where she is now a distinguished professor. In her work, Pindell often employs lengthy, metaphorical processes of destruction / reconstruction, addressing social issues of homelessness, AIDS, war, genocide, sexism, xenophobia, and apartheid. Pindell’s work has been featured in many landmark museum exhibitions and is in the permanent collections of major international museums. Most recently, Pindell’s work was the subject of the retrospective Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen (2018, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago).

Exhibition Catalogue

The front cover of the catalogue for "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water." The cover is black with the name Howardena Pindell centered in white script, the subtitle of the book is half-visible in script along the book's spine
The title page spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water". On the left is a full-bleed detail image of a white abstract painting with multicolored dots. On the left is the book's title and publisher name.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water". On the left is a full-bleed detail image of a white abstract painting with multicolored dots. On the right, an essay title sits in script at the top of the page with the author's name, Adeze Wilford, at the bottom.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water." The left-hand page has the title "Why I'm Not a Hard-Edge Painter: A Conversation with Howardena Pindell," printed in script. The right-hand page has two columns of text with an image intervening in the first column.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water." Each page has two columns of text with images interspersed.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water" with black pages. On the left is a full-bleed detail image of an abstract painting by Pindell. On the right is the title of the book's titular artwork, "Rope/Fire/Water," printed in script.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water" with black pages. On the left is several rows of text at the bottom of the page. On the right is a small square image of a 18th-century ship at the center of the page.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water" with black pages. On the left is text in script with the names of two artworks by Pindell. On the right is a detail image of one of those works, a close-up of a black funereal wreath around a row of photos of four little girls.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water" with black pages. On the left is a text by the artist. On the right, are two detail images of a work by Pindell, stacked one on top of the other.
A spread of the catalogue "Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water". On the left is a full-bleed detail image of a yellow abstract painting with multicolored dots and suture-like stitiching. On the right, an essay title sits in script at the top of the page reading "Accounting for Oneself" with the author's name, Ashley James, at the bottom.

Edited by Adeze Wilford
2020

$30

A fully illustrated catalogue including an essay from exhibition curator Adeze Wilford, a conversation between Howardena Pindell and Guggenheim curator Ashley James, writings by the artist, and a conversation between Pindell and Shed senior program advisor Hans Ulrich Obrist. The book concludes with an illustrated checklist that includes an image of each artwork in the exhibition. Co-published by The Shed and König Books/Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König.

118 pages
Softcover
6.5 x 9.5 inches

More about the exhibition

Howardena Pindell (b. 1943, Philadelphia, PA) works across painting and film. She is an activist, critic, and professor who spent over a decade working at the Museum of Modern Art as one of the institution’s first Black curators. In 1972, she was a founding member of the pioneering, women-led A.I.R. Gallery and continues to teach at the State University of New York at Stony Brook as a distinguished professor. Largely known for her monumentally scaled abstract canvases, Pindell has expanded the definition of what abstract painting can be through her inclusion of glitter, paper circles made with hole punches, and the layering of mixed media and scent.

Though racist violence has plagued American life since this country’s beginnings, we do not all share the same awareness of this history. In this exhibition, Pindell presents Rope/Fire/Water (2020), a new video work commissioned by The Shed that examines the painful legacy of white supremacy in the United States. This video bookends the artist’s searing exploration of racial microaggressions in her landmark video Free, White and 21 (1980), in which she embodied several characters including a Black everywoman and an argumentative white woman. To accompany Rope/Fire/Water, Pindell has created two new thematic paintings, Columbus (2020) and Four Little Girls (2020), each an homage to the victims of race-based violence in this country and the lasting effects of imperialism on a global scale. These paintings are surrounded by large-scale abstract works that give visitors space to process the information in the video and thematic paintings, just as the artist puts her mind at ease after engaging with emotionally fraught material through the methodical process of creating such textured and layered canvases as Plankton Lace #1 (2020). Taken together, these works offer hope for a less violent future by educating viewers about our painful history while providing comfort in its aftermath.

Works in this exhibition include images and descriptions depicting racial violence, including lynching. An educator is available in the gallery if you would like to discuss the work. Please look for the staff member with a badge that reads, “Let’s talk about the art.”

Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water is organized by Adeze Wilford, Assistant Curator. Exhibition management by Jesse Hamerman, Director of Exhibitions, Heather Reyes, Exhibitions Producer, and Elizabeth Berridge, Exhibitions Assistant.

Explore Public Programs

The Shed invited a broad roster of artists, thinkers, activists, and representatives of other cultural organizations to celebrate the artist’s pioneering, multifaceted work and to discuss creative, alternative solutions to policy issues related to the exhibition’s themes. Explore more through the conversations in the two series below.

Details

  • To learn more about what to expect at The Shed and how we’re keeping you safe, please review our Visit page before you arrive.
  • To help you maintain a safe distance from others in the gallery, images and explanatory texts for selected works in the exhibition will be available in an online exhibition guide, available via your smartphone.
  • Works in this exhibition include images and descriptions depicting racial violence, including lynching. An educator will be available in the gallery if you would like to discuss the work. Please look for the staff member with a badge that reads, “Let’s talk about the art.”

Accessibility

  • Ticketing desks are equipped with t-coil technology.
  • Assistive listening devices are available at the entrance to the gallery.
  • Laminated large-format wall labels are available in the gallery and regularly disinfected.

Location and dates

This event takes place in Level 2 Gallery.

Thursday – Sunday
11 am – 6 pm

Please enter The Shed via The McCourt on the Hudson Yards Public Square. For more on what to expect, visit this page.

Thank you to our partners

Major Support for Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water is provided by
Additional support is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
The creation of new work at The Shed is generously supported by the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Commissioning Fund and the Shed Commissioners.