>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen.

Coming up on Open Studio, artist Sonya Clark looks at how racism is literally woven into American culture by way of the Confederate flag.

She's committed to flying an alternate flag that says something else.

Then, a photographer documents why for Black Americans the road has historically been less traveled.

Plus, how artist Rob "ProBlak" Gibbs paints backdrops to our ongoing conversation about race.

And how painter Jacob Lawrence portrayed a country built on conflict and strife in his series Struggle: From the History of the American People.

It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ Welcome to this special edition of the show focusing on race in America as seen through artists' eyes.

We're revisiting conversations with artists who explore America's history, the people history has excluded, and what it takes to thrive in a country that was built on the exploitation of others.

First up, artist Sonya Clark has interrogated the Confederate battle flag.

And in doing so, she's introduced us to the flag we should know.

I caught up with Sonya Clark in 2020, when her work was on view at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

Unfurled as a monumental sea of off-white filling much of this gallery space, is a Confederate flag of truce.

Or as the title of this exhibition explains-- The Flag We Should Know.

>> I want everyone to know what this flag is so we can conceive of what truce really means.

>> BOWEN: History has largely forgotten this simple white flag, actually a towel, used by Confederate troops to signal a truce during General Robert E. Lee's surrender in 1865.

The original is now housed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

That's where artist and Amherst College professor of art Sonya Clark discovered it during a visit in 2010.

>> And I have to tell you, I was like, how come I've never seen this thing before?

And that question is why there is the show that you're in right now.

(laughs) >> BOWEN: Haunting this show is a flag that's not seen here-- the Confederate battle flag, that unlike the truce flag, survived to become a ubiquitous emblem in this country.

As Clark documents, it adorns all manner of merchandise from baby onesies to nipple pasties.

>> My thought was, what would this nation be like if that was the image of the Civil War that had endured, that something was surrendered?

But instead we have the Confederate battle flag in our consciousness, yeah.

>> BOWEN: Deeply so-- when Clark and a curatorial team assembled this show in Philadelphia two years ago, they sought out red paint to pop in the exhibition's otherwise neutral palette.

>> Because the Confederate flag of truce has these three minimal red stripes on it, I said, "Well, that's the color we'll use."

>> BOWEN: The Benjamin Moore sample they inadvertently selected?

- ...Was Confederate Red.

That paint chip color, Confederate Red, lived between two other paint chip colors.

One was called Raspberry Truffle, and the other was called Cherry Wine.

In between these two confections is a color that is about insurrection, about enemies of the states, about people who wanted to keep Black and brown people enslaved.

>> BOWEN: Clark has interrogated the legacy of the Confederate battle flag both intellectually and physically.

In her piece Reversals, she used a dishcloth featuring the Confederate flag to remove dust covering a section of The Declaration of Independence preamble.

And in Unraveling, she collaborated with audience members to literally deconstruct the flag.

Thread by thread-- a metaphor for the glacial pace of dismantling racism.

>> I think when people see the Confederate battle flag being paraded through the U.S. Capitol, Sonya's work offers some tools to process what does that incredibly complicated image mean for us.

>> BOWEN: The deCordova's Sam Adams oversaw both this installation and the companion show Heavenly Bound.

In Constellation, Clark delivers us into a night sky, honoring the guidance it provided enslaved people escaping to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

>> We're thinking about people whose stories were incredible, they're full of bravery and they're inspiring and deeply important to the foundation of the country.

But they're not recorded.

>> BOWEN: However, their history may live in the artist's hair.

Here Clark offers a white sky dotted with black stars created from her own head.

>> If you pluck a hair, in that hair is this genetic code for all the people who have come before you.

So your hair is both singular, like it's the hair that I grow, but it's also absolutely collective.

>> BOWEN: Clark is mindful of the "we" throughout her work.

She wants museums patrons to become pollinators-- taking her ideas with them as they leave.

But not before participating.

>> All the way to the other side, just give it a nice push through.

>> BOWEN: Visitors here are invited to help make truce flags on looms in the gallery.

>> And then you'll send it through again... take it out, let your foot off the lever.

Bring the beater down.

Pull it tight, back up.

And then the next pedal.

It's important that we all participate in this collective work of healing, of racial and social justice.

>> BOWEN: And how does weaving do that?

>> So we do that on a symbolic level by-- every single visitor who participates, will contribute to a collective truce flag.

>> BOWEN: With some deft pedal work, precise shuttling, and maneuvering, the visitor weaves their own self into the show-- imperfections and all.

Are you mindful that people will leave their interaction with your work or leave a museum exhibition different?

>> Maybe they leave with a question, which actually is more powerful, I think, than an answer.

Because a question is... is an invitation to keep thinking.

That's actually how the artwork grows and lives beyond me.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Next, a lot of dreams in this country are built along the open road-- where we can go, what lies ahead, and where we can be free.

But as photographer Amani Willet documents in a recent book, for Black Americans, there is A Parallel Road.

I spoke with Amani Willet in 2021, when his book came out.

Amani Willet, thank you so much for being with us.

>> Thank you so much for having me today.

It's great to be here with you.

>> BOWEN: I've been so eager to speak with you about your book, A Parallel Road.

And your book starts with notions, I think, we have long held about what the road means.

You see happy families, you see food and gas stations, and a sense of nostalgia, but then it turns.

So tell me about A Parallel Road.

>> Sure, yes, so that's spot on.

It really starts out with this idea that the road, really, in America, I think especially in America, holds this place in... that comes from a place of mythology.

It's, it's a place that's associated with the American dream.

It's associated with freedom and exuberance.

And there was from the start, with the interstate highways, this real excitement, I think, on all Americans' part to take... to take part in this new system of interconnectedness and what it had to offer.

And so, you know, there was, I think, a real exciting sense for all Americans-- you know, Black, white, whoever-- to take part in this experience.

And what unfortunately happens, as we found out, we found out in many aspects of American life, is that, you know, for Black Americans, they don't really have access to the same freedoms that white Americans do.

So the book does start and this book project actually is very personal for me.

All of the vernacular images in the book are actually pictures of family members.

So I asked my very supportive and large extended family to send me all the pictures they had, anything they could find in their archives with a car in it.

>> BOWEN: So we see... we see the pictures you expect to see about the road and that happiness, about journey and anticipation.

But you realize...

I'm realizing and thinking back on your pictures that most of them we see at people's homes are not actually on the road.

So what is being on the road mean?

>> Right.

And so that... that's a very astute observation.

I think we found out very quickly that it wasn't an equal opportunity experience for everyone.

And so it really was this parallel experience where, you know, Black Americans quickly realized that, you know, going on the road was, besides the logistics, you had to think about...

I mean, this was Jim Crow America, so you had to think about, "Okay, well, where can I get food?

"Where can I stay for the night?

"Where can I even pee?

So I have to bring pots and pans with me."

Not to mention the fears of, you know, potential bodily harm and traumas that were real at the time as well and still exist today in this new American experience, but it quickly became apparent that in order to navigate the roadways in America, it was going to take extra planning, it was going to take creativity, it was going to take courage.

It was going to take, as we see with The Green Book, a way to successfully navigate some of these obstacles.

And what was really interesting to me about The Green Book is that, you know, if you think...

I had been doing a project on the Underground Railroad sites in America in 2010 and '11, and that really talks about slavery and mobility.

And during that research, I came across The Green Book, and here was this book that really just laid bare that the same problems still existed in the next century, where... >> BOWEN: For people who don't know, The Green Book, of course, as we know from the film, we learn that this was a book that illustrated for Black people where it was safe to travel through the early decades of this country.

>> It was this way for Black people to... you know, it was almost like, you know, something they could take as for security, you know, and something that was a guide.

I mean, it really was a guide.

"Where where can I go to the bathroom?

Where can I spend money?

Where can I fill up on gas?"

>> BOWEN: Well, tell me about your, your photography.

I notice we see a lot of empty spaces there.

>> For the experience I was trying to elicit, it was this the sense of fear that when you...

I think everyone can relate to, you know, maybe being on an empty roadway at night, whether you're Black, white, or whoever, it's something that can be a little jarring, a little jolting, and can just sort of prick you in the back of your head that, you know, maybe something bad could happen here.

And that's what I wanted people to feel, you know, when looking at the work, was that this trauma that I think Black Americans carry around from basically all facets of American history is something that I think people can relate to on an emotional level, no matter who you are.

>> BOWEN: You had been working on this project for several years.

What is it like to have it be published and be met at this moment where we're seeing the danger of people of color just being outside thinking of what happened at the Capitol, and the Black Lives Matter movements and the deaths we saw last year?

>> Yeah, that's a great question and I think, you know, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, this book is about the American roads and a particular experience of Black Americans on the American roadways.

But it's also... that experience is a microcosm of race relations in America, right?

And so it's been really hard this year to look at what's happened.

But, quite frankly, I think in the era of social media too, our awareness and our... and the way we've looked at violence against Black people that have been caught on camera and played in loops over and over on social media has amplified this problem as well.

So, you know, it's come to a head.

You know, it's something I had been more aware of in the last four or five years and seeing it play out on social media.

And this year was a particularly bad year.

And so it felt really important to try... to have this work come out now, you know, to...

It felt like the right, the right moment, the right time with what our country was going through.

And for me to help also just as an artist, you know, to work through some of my feelings and my anger and frustrations, getting this book out now is really important.

And, you know, it's-- the reception has been, has made me really... happy is not the right word, because I'm not happy about any of this.

But I've had a lot of conversations.

And, you know, that's really the goal, right, with anything you do when you're making art is to inspire conversations.

And I've had a lot of conversations with people... friends who are white and said, "Wow, I'll never look at driving the same way again.

I never thought about this."

>> BOWEN: Well, Amani Willett, it's been so wonderful speaking with you.

Really appreciate you being here.

And congratulations on the book, which, yeah, you can just clutch, I love that you can just hold it and spend that deep time with it, thank you.

>> Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: We continue our look at artists' take on race with Rob "ProBlak" Gibbs.

You can see his most recent work-- a massive mural-- on Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway.

But I caught up with him in 2020 while he was working on a Roxbury mural.

We talked about monumental painting, the legacy of street art, and the power of positivity.

(jazz music playing) For artist Robert Gibbs, the routine is straightforward-- rise up and get rolling with music.

>> So there's songs that either I'm familiar with from listening to my moms and pops jamming on a Saturday or things that I've grown up with just throughout all my life, music is definitely, uh... a vital component to painting.

>> BOWEN: The lifelong Bostonian is working on the third mural in his Breathe Life series-- epic-sized works bringing fresh air into the city's Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods.

Begun in 2017, they offer a narrative.

First, a little boy with massive might.

Two years later Gibbs painted him as deliriously happy, supporting his equally joyous sister on his shoulders.

Now, she's floating into the world on her own.

>> She's blowing a series of bubbles and out of the series of bubbles, there's going to be one of them that's big enough that covers and protects her whole entire body.

>> BOWEN: What do we see in her hair?

>> You see the universe, the galaxy, so, um, the universe is always on her mind.

>> BOWEN: On his mind has been Gibbs's two-year-old daughter, making sure that as she grows up in Boston, in these times, she has something to look up to.

>> It's an uplifting message.

And so instead of trying to... as I would say, feed steak to a baby, I would... sneak the, um, the pill in the applesauce.

(laughs) And so hopefully it's something that she grows up with and other little, little kids that see themselves in the murals.

>> BOWEN: Gibbs also grew up here, venturing into graffiti art as a teenager in the early 1990s.

>> It's just the ability to hack or manipulate the ideas from, you know, these little cans.

>> BOWEN: He stuck mostly to his neighborhood, mostly to buildings where he and fellow artists had permission to paint.

>> These are areas and buildings that people, or the city, wasn't even caring about, that we were putting the beauty in.

>> ♪ Creative innovator to his heart ♪ ♪ His name is Ramo ♪ and his specialty is art ♪ ♪ On Beat Street ♪ >> BOWEN: Part of his inspiration came from movies that cracked open his view of the possible.

>> One of the films was Beat Street and then there's Star Wars, and there was brothers and sisters in there that looked like us.

I was like, "Yo, what they're doing is speaking for the culture in such a large platform."

>> BOWEN: Today Gibbs's own platforms are expansive too.

Of course, there are the towering walls.

But there's also Artists for Humanity, the institution he cofounded almost 30 years ago that puts under-resourced teenagers to work as artists.

And teaming with him for his latest mural is Boston's Museum of Fine Arts in a nod to its upcoming Basquiat exhibition and, says the museum's Makeeba McCreary, as an acknowledgment that it can do better.

>> Black artists, Black artists from Roxbury, from Dorchester, from Mattapan have not traditionally been acknowledged in our collection and in our programming.

>> BOWEN: The Breathe Life mural's timing is also horribly coincidental, as the killing of George Floyd has once again reminded the nation of the sanctity of breath.

>> In a state where we cannot breathe, I'm asking people to take the time to breathe and look at what's going on.

People are walking around with their head down, angry, mad.

And when you look at these murals, they're so large in size, it's a minute to take a breath and look up and see what's promising, you know?

>> BOWEN: Already drawing visitors, the mural is painted on Gibbs's alma mater, Madison Park High School, a sentimental spot, but one that is also easily visible a mile away.

And it's no accident that this girl floats over Boston Police Headquarters.

>> She's owning, um, her place, her rightful place in the city.

And, um, you want everybody to see that.

But mostly you want little brown and black girls and boys to see that.

>> BOWEN: They will also see, wh Breathe Life is finished, Gibbs's signature-- his artist name, ProBlak.

>> It's our name, "Pro" is for black is our people.

And so that signature, or the style, or what people see alone and can connect with me as an artist, it, it speaks volumes, man, and it feels great because now, you know, I've got my daughter telling me I'm a superhero to her now.

(chuckles) So I'mma just continue to grow on and flow on, man.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Finally, we look at the Struggle of painter Jacob Lawrence.

In the 1950s, amid the McCarthy hearings and the launch of the Civil Rights Movement, he sought to reframe early American history the way he saw it.

In 2020, his sprawling series, called Struggle, was reassembled for a national tour.

The first stop-- right here Salem's Peabody Essex Museum.

In 1954, the late painter Jacob Lawrence began a series he called Struggle: From the History of the American People.

The most famous Black artist of his time, he originally thought he might depict African-American struggle.

He soon reconsidered.

>> When there's issues of unrest or struggle, it's a story that is an effect of a whole society, not a small group within a society.

>> BOWEN: Over two years, Lawrence painted a series of 30 panels, from Patrick Henry's struggle to reconcile the co-existence of liberty and slavery to the harrowing push for westward expansion.

Artist Derrick Adams has been taking the panels in one at a time, including this depiction of a slave revolt in 1810.

>> In this particular piece, it's some type of torture in this work, and you can see the way the body is kind of, like, stretched across the plane of the, of the painting.

When you look at the work, there's no space to not acknowledge the scene.

>> BOWEN: Here at the Peabody Essex Museum, these panels are together for the first time in more than 60 years.

>> We have assembled, and tracked, and researched, and investigated.

It's been a little bit like being a detective.

>> BOWEN: Austen Barron Bailly is one of the show's curators.

Six years in the making, the exhibition features most of the original works.

>> There are panels that remain completely unlocated.

And those are either in private hands or lost.

>> BOWEN: The whereabouts of five paintings is unknown, although the hunt is on.

This one, Panel 19, turned up at a New York auction as Bailly was working on the show.

That must have been ridiculously exciting.

>> It was incredibly exciting.

These are the accidents of history that have informed this show, that even informed Lawrence's work.

>> BOWEN: A darling of the modern art world, Lawrence was 37 when he began Struggle.

Almost 15 years earlier, he created The Migration Series, a critically acclaimed effort featuring the move of Black Americans from the rural South to the urban North.

>> The artist Steve Locke, who contributed to our catalogue, likes to describe The Migration Series as kind of his greatest hit, but the Struggle series as the better record.

>> BOWEN: By the time he put paint to canvas, Lawrence had spent more than five years researching American history, combing through historical records and teasing out quotations that would serve as his prompt.

>> He looked for the voices of founding fathers.

He looked for these actions that people took in the struggle to build our democracy.

And he offers it up as a way through these incredible paintings to draw you in.

>> BOWEN: Lawrence's take on history is an intimate one.

Where Paul Revere gave us the Boston Massacre in full-blown battle, Lawrence delivered us straight to its first victim.

Where Emmanuel Leutze gave us a valiant George Washington crossing the Delaware, Lawrence delivers despair.

>> Cold, suffering.

Choppy weather, hints of blood.

Robed men trying to stay warm.

Hands-- emphasizing these hands trying to row across, silently, steadfastly.

And there's no sense of who, if any, of these people would be George Washington.

>> BOWEN: Well, it's struggle, it's not heroism as we might know it here.

>> Exactly.

And I think from Lawrence's perspective, the heroism is the collective endeavor.

>> BOWEN: Each panel is relatively small, just 12 by 16 inches, and Lawrence routinely wrote notes about his process on the backs of the works, all as it related to Struggle.

>> I think about someone like Jacob at a time where artists, like him, had very little opportunity to experience themselves as an artist.

I'm sure it came with a lot of challenges and obstacles, beyond his ability to create what he created.

>> BOWEN: A widely exhibited artist himself, Derrick Adams says Lawrence, who died in 2000, has influenced his career more than any other painter.

He points out the two bear a strikingly similar resemblance.

And he even once escorted Lawrence around New York's Pratt Institute, where Adams was a student.

>> I felt like he was a "Jacob" to me than a "Mr.

Lawrence."

I don't know, it just seemed like he was very, like, um, approachable and very, um, modest in personality.

I felt like we were more, um... Just more in kinship.

>> BOWEN: Despite Lawrence's wishes to keep the series together at an institution, the paintings were ultimately sold off in the late 1950s.

But Lawrence later considered the work a turning point, where he found a way to depict humanity.

>> And he offers it up as a way through these incredible paintings to draw you in, and examine, and think about your proximity to those stories and your relationship to them.

>> BOWEN: The exhibition closes with an installation Derrick Adams created after sifting through Lawrence's archives.

It's an imaginary studio, filled with photographs never before shown publicly.

The chair is Lawrence's, oriented, it seems, for quiet contemplation, and facing a ladder perhaps lifting Lawrence out of struggle.

>> You know, the ladder, I think, has to do with just the idea of the plight, his career, the plight of humanity.

Jacob, you know, starting from this very familiar place of being seated, and thinking, and then that part of kind of ascending.

He's no longer with us.

But there's things that kind of give us a bigger picture of who Jacob was.

>> BOWEN: Which is of an artist defined, in part, by struggle.

♪ ♪ And that is all for this special edition of Open Studio.

I'm Jared Bowen, thanks for joining us.

As always, you can visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.

And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @OpenStudioGBH.

I'm @TheJaredBowen.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪