Heather Robinson has two sons—a 13-year-old and a three-year-old—who are implicated, in a way, in the South Side Community Art Center’s new show, “Maleness to Manhood.” “I’m here with two roles,” she tells me. One is as the center’s executive director. The other: “I’m here as a mother who wants my sons to be able to grow up. They have nice stuff—you know what I mean, they’re cool—but I fear for their lives. I’m hoping that this show will save them, protect them.”
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“Maleness to Manhood,” which opened last Friday, features the work of 45 male artists of color. It was conceived after Trayvon Martin’s murder but before the acquittal of George Zimmerman, which came to symbolize a culture that ascribes not much value to the lives of its young black men. “Little did we know how the summer would progress,” says Raymond Thomas, who cocurated the show and has work in it, “where you had the death rate soaring, and then also the heartbreaking Trayvon Martin verdict. The urgency of it became even more palatable, for us as artists and as men to address this thing.”
The project recalls the Wall of Respect, the famous mural that African-American artists painted in 1967 on the side of a grocery at 43rd and Langley—not far from here. Laoye draws another historical connection: “In African-American history, there’s been moments when there would be a call for visual artists to assist in enlightening the culture itself”—the Harlem Renaissance, for instance. This is one of those moments, he says. “Whereas the politicians and the church people, the clergies, and individuals are trying to help—we feel it’s our turn.”
“Maleness to Manhood: Reclamation of the Young Black Man” Paint the Block Day Sat 9/21 Artists’ talk hosted by Lee Bey Sat 9/28, 2-5 PM
Through 10/5 South Side Community Art Center 3831 S. Michigan 773-373-1026southsidecommunityartcenter.com free
