vanessa german, “ET AL, or, The Child Plaintiffs as Power-Figures: Courage and Play, Love and Hope, Grace and Compassion, Will and Might, Serenity and Music, Light and Joy, Warrior and Intellect, Creativity and Vision” installation view (Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College / photo by EG Schempf)
One of the most powerful things about art is its ability to reframe historical events in a way that enlarges our understanding of them and how they have impacted our lives. Award-winning North Carolina artist vanessa german’s “ET AL, or, The Child Plaintiffs as Power-Figures: Courage and Play, Love and Hope, Grace and Compassion, Will and Might, Serenity and Music, Light and Joy, Warrior and Intellect, Creativity and Vision” is a shining example of speaking to power through historical recontextualization in art.
Originally included in “CRAVING LIGHT: The Museum of Love and Reckoning,” an exhibition at Washburn University’s Mulvane Art Museum that commemorated the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, “ET AL” presents eight glorious, mostly porcelain, white mixed-media figures.
German creates her sculptural figures through a process of addition and layering. She begins with large figures and then sculpts outward by attaching a range of materials. The resulting sculptures radiate the same sense of majesty as some of the greats: Michaelangelo’s David, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the stucco and limestone bust of Nefertiti.
In “ET AL,” german presents the plaintiffs of Brown v. Board of Education, not as hapless victims in need of saving, but as mythologically majestic heroic figures who need nothing … but are needed by the world around them.
Adorned with black hands and capped with a white sculptural bird, each majestic figure bears distinctly Black facial features, remaining loyal to the ethnicity of the individuals represented. Each figure looks stoically into the future, emanating courage and determination. Hanging light bulbs bathe them in a somewhat heavenly layer of illumination, highlighting and dancing along the details of the embedded objects.
1954 was not that long ago. Structures and institutions that existed then still exist now. The issues of race and inclusion that existed then still exist now. The Black struggle for socioeconomic equality that existed then still exists now. And it appears they will exist for the foreseeable — if not humanity’s entire — future.
German’s “ET AL” reminds us that the heroism, courage, resilience and determination that existed then still also exists now. Like the birds adorning her figures, hope still adorns those who choose to live on the right side of history. Like the multiple objects accumulated into these figures, the words and actions of those individuals continue to accumulate into our social consciousness. Every time a Black child goes to a public school, they are walking in the footsteps of the plaintiffs of Brown v. Board of Education who paved the path for them.
Like a hall of heroes, “ET AL” presents these heroes as reminders along that path. They remind us that the courage and determination to effect social change then is still needed and still present.
vanessa german: “ET AL, or, The Child Plaintiffs as Power-Figures: Courage and Play, Love and Hope, Grace and Compassion, Will and Might, Serenity and Music, Light and Joy, Warrior and Intellect, Creativity and Vision” continues at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park, through July 27. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, 913.469.3000 or www.nermanmuseum.com.
