Artists in Conversation: Black Power is a Color

Join us in a conversation with Portland-based artists Christine Miller, Danielle McCoy, and Kareem Blair as they reflect on their recent collaborative exhibition “Black Power is a Color,” presented at Blackfish Gallery in July 2020. “Black Power is a Color” builds off graphic design as a medium for protest and resistance, taking inspiration from the spectrum of visual messaging of the Black Power Movement. Two juxtaposing methodologies combine, from graphic artist Emory Douglass — the graphic artist for the Black Panther Party — and painter Raymond Saunders, whose view on “purpose” of “Black art” is codified in “Black Is a Color,” a pamphlet he designed and published in 1967. We’ll hear from the artists on their practices and intentions to center art in discussions of radical change. The program will be moderated by writer Terrence Watson.

This exhibition was motivated by Blackfish Gallery’s commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement, to amplify Black artists’ experiences, thoughts and feelings during this summer’s reckoning and protests against racial inequity, police brutality, and systemic racism. “Black Power is a Color” is an action for change: 10% of all art sales were donated to Y.G.B. Portland, a Pro-Black, Pro-Femme, Pro-Queer collaborative whose mission is to create spaces of joy and healing for the Black and Brown community of Portland, Oregon.

The event is sponsored by the Contemporary Art Council of the Portland Art Museum and is free, open to all without RSVP.