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Banner image:听Rashid Johnson, a painter, sculptor, installation artist and filmmaker, in his Long Island, N.Y., studio on Dec. 16, 2020. ()听

When Megan O鈥橤rady looks at a painting, she doesn鈥檛 just examine its composition. She鈥檚 interested in the artist behind the brushstrokes and the social context in which the artist is working.

This month she explored an extraordinary, yet little written about, history of Black abstraction in a piece for The New York Times: . CU Boulder Today spoke with O鈥橤rady, a critic and essayist who recently joined the university as assistant professor of Critical and Curatorial Studies in Art and Art History, about why it鈥檚 important to revisit art history, its movements and its artists.

What prompted you to write this piece for The New York Times Style Magazine?

I鈥檝e always been drawn to art that鈥檚 more subliminal in its messaging. Being in the same room as a canvas does something to you. There鈥檚 a contact high, a euphoria. The radical color, vibrancy and vastness of scale just bypass the analytical parts of one鈥檚 brain. Gilliam was associated with the Washington Color School, but his formal innovations set him apart. In the late 1960s, he began painting on unsupported canvas that could be draped and suspended, giving it a sculptural quality. He鈥檚 87 now, and he just had a show of new work at the Pace Gallery in New York.

As I began the story, I was thinking about the ways in which our current moment feels parallel to the time when Gilliam was making those breakthroughs. It鈥檚 another era of national self-reflection, prompted in part by brutalities captured on cellphone cameras鈥攏ot so different from a half-century ago, when images from Selma were being beamed into living rooms and white Americans were witnessing what Black communities were up against.听

In the 1960s, there was an expectation that African-American artists make work that engaged explicitly with the civil rights struggle or that was explicitly invested in racial uplift. To a certain extent, this is still true today. Figurative painting and art that鈥檚 very direct in its social critique has dominated the conversation for a few years, and for good reason. But I wanted to know how artists who worked in less representative modes dealt with that expectation.

Your story also looks at a younger generation of abstract artists.听

Yes. in particular was key to this story in helping me make the case that, as a critical and existential investigation, abstraction is no less relevant to questions of identity or consciousness. As Johnson told me, 鈥淭here is no battle between abstraction and representation. These are not adversarial positions. It鈥檚 like suggesting that John Coltrane has less of a voice than Stevie Wonder.鈥澨�

Also, I should say that these modes can sometimes be more porous than we make them out to be. This is what makes the work of two of my favorite 20th century painters, Norman Lewis and Beauford Delaney, so compelling: You can see them discovering on the canvas for themselves what texture, rhythm and gesture can do, not to mention a refusal to bow to imposed standards.听

Why is it important to tell these stories of past and present artists, who have ended up being less well known for their abstract work?

Much of the work of a critic today involves re-contextualizing artists and rethinking art movements of the past, knowing that art history, like all histories, is fallible, privileging some stories and experiences over others. Alma Thomas, the first African-American woman to have a retrospective at the Whitney in 1972, was an abstract painter. Gilliam became the first African-American to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale the same year. These are major American artists, and yet there鈥檚 no question that they were marginalized and why. Needless to say, it鈥檚 dehumanizing to have your work consistently undervalued.

Jack Whitten鈥檚 鈥淣otes From the Woodshed鈥� helped me find a way in. Published in 2018, the same year as the artist鈥檚 death, it compiles five decades of his studio logs. In them, he was continually refining his creative purpose and ideals; he contended with exactly this question: What is the purpose of art when racism in this country is a constant threat? In 1963, after the white supremacist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, his hometown, that killed four girls and partially blinded a fifth, he went through a long, anguished stretch of self-questioning. It鈥檚 an amazing document.

Where might we see work by some of these artists?

A really wonderful show, 鈥�,鈥� that just opened at the New Museum in New York, features many of the artists I wrote about in the story, including Whitten, Johnson, Mark Bradford and Jennie C. Jones. Gilliam鈥檚 鈥淒ouble Merge鈥濃�攁n installation of two drape paintings from 1968鈥攊s , and a show of his new work just concluded at the Pace Gallery in New York. Currently, . In the fall, will have a show at Lehmann Maupin. The , which showcases several generations of Black abstract artists, has been touring museums. While the pandemic has made access to art more difficult, many museums have digital tours, and galleries have begun to re-open. We all need a little inspiration and beauty these days.