Workshop (Builders #1) 1972

Curator: This vibrant print, "Workshop (Builders #1)," was created by Jacob Lawrence in 1972. It is a mixed media piece, using acrylic paint alongside printing techniques. Editor: The striking angularity and bright blocks of colour give me a sense of energetic industriousness, a sort of structured chaos. Curator: Lawrence often employed a modernist, social realism style. Note the emphasis on flattened perspective and bold geometric shapes—observing the intrinsic structure. Editor: And those vibrant hues serve to highlight the materiality. It begs the question, what's the role of labor in producing a cultural object? What materials are involved and how are they being deployed? Curator: Indeed. His choice of simplifying figures and forms, reduces human presence to abstracted symbols that underscores an almost universally shared act of labor. Editor: Focusing on that point, what are they actually building? The abstracted nature prompts us to consider it as perhaps an analogy. Perhaps this collaborative building points to community construction more broadly. It acknowledges Black labor. Curator: I observe Lawrence is reducing everything, humanizing them and shaping human endeavor into abstracted elements which still suggests movement through lines and shapes. Editor: The raw aesthetic with the bold application of pigment shows the realness behind the process. This allows the print to operate more on the terms of the labourers constructing something. Curator: It's fascinating to consider how Lawrence creates a work that functions both as a representation of reality and as a study of visual organization. Editor: Considering the broader context of labor, race, and material creation illuminates Jacob Lawrence’s critical eye. Curator: Looking into form, color, shape, and material truly highlights a reading on labor and movement in community and construction. Editor: Considering the physicality inherent in the act of creation provides unique context. The artmaking itself mirrors that which it depicts: it is process.