Elegy #2 1980

Curator: Immediately I think of weathered stone, some forgotten wall covered with moss and fragmented memory. Editor: We're looking at "Elegy #2", a mixed media artwork created around 1980 by Sam Gilliam, a pivotal figure in the abstract expressionist movement. The canvas seems to be built up with layers of different material. What cultural narratives might be embedded here? Curator: Layering suggests palimpsest to me: an image containing an echo or trace of earlier images underneath. Look how paint seems almost excavated. I notice several colors in conversation: the vibrancy of red, yellow, and blue alongside muted grey. It hints at cycles of creation and destruction; doesn't it echo resilience? Editor: That cycle could reflect Gilliam’s journey navigating racial politics within the art world of the time. Action painting, a strain of Abstract Expressionism to which Gilliam was linked, became something of an avenue to reject formalism; to celebrate artistic gestures. It also allowed the artwork to reflect identity. Abstraction itself became a kind of defiance for marginalized artists who challenged traditional modes of representation. Curator: The canvas is like an ideogram in itself. In Jungian terms, the image might invite an introspective journey. The textures especially offer rich symbolism. They don’t only give form to abstract ideas. They engage our bodies! Editor: Precisely. In this vein, what happens if we look closely at the “Elegy” in relation to the context from which it grew? The artist, as a Black man, making art at a time of immense social and racial tensions. Can we see these textural choices as visual reclamations, assertions of presence in spaces that sought erasure? Curator: Indeed, the tension you mentioned evokes the pushes and pulls within consciousness. And you know, thinking about it as "Elegy" points us toward remembrance... perhaps of those whose voices and bodies were suppressed? Editor: Gilliam's experimental approach allowed for profound expression—his break from convention encouraged others to interrogate artistic and social norms, so each interpretation invites an opening. Curator: A powerful interplay of surface and symbol! I leave with an even stronger impression. Editor: Me too; a renewed appreciation for the dialogue between material and meaning!