Honoring the African-American Experience - NYC Parks

This sculpture by Elizabeth Catlett pays tribute to the author of Invisible Man, who lived near Riverside Park. It features a bronze monolith with a silhouette of a striding man and a granite wall with a quotation and biography of Ellison.

And check out the great exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum before it closes:

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies

September 13, 2024–January 19, 2025

Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor

#ElizabethCatlettBkM

A defining Black woman artist of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) has not received the mainstream art-world attention afforded many of her peers. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due.

A deft sculptor and printmaker, devout feminist, and lifelong social justice advocate, Catlett was uniquely committed to both her creative process and political convictions. Growing up during the Great Depression, she witnessed class inequality, racial violence, and U.S. imperialism firsthand, all while pursuing an artistic education grounded in the tenets of modernism. Catlett would protest injustices for nearly a century, via both soaring artworks and on-the-ground activism. 

Born in Washington, DC, Catlett settled permanently in Mexico in 1946 and for the rest of her life she worked to amplify the experiences of Black and Mexican women. Inspired by sources ranging from African sculpture to works by Barbara Hepworth and Käthe Kollwitz, Catlett never lost sight of the Black liberation struggle in the United States. Characterized by bold lines and voluptuous forms, her powerful work continues to speak directly to all those united in the fight against poverty, racism, and imperialism. 

As Seen In Harlem

In between a TV display running non-stop ads for a business and a bodega display of snacks, is a building column that years ago was painted in the barber’s stripes. The business is long gone, but no one has either restored the column or painted over the red, white, and blue.