By Anastasia Merkulova
The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland currently displays the “Dewey Crumpler: Life Studies” exhibit that examines the themes of consumerism, globalization and racial capitalism.
The gallery showcases Crumpler’s work on paper and mixed-media paintings. The exhibit will be open until Dec. 10 with a roundtable discussion of its themes on Nov. 7.
In Crumpler’s art, economic systems sustained by racism are symbolically represented in two forms: tulips and shipping containers.
The history of tulips being a commodity transported out of their original places is what attracted Crumpler to them, he recalled in the “Dewey Crumpler: Life Studies” podcast from The Driskell Center.
Crumpler related the history and treatment of tulips to that of enslaved Africans.
“I could only see the history that my own body was connected to having been a product of a whole history that brought me inside of vessels across waters,” Crumpler said in the podcast.
According to a plaque at the gallery, Crumpler links shipping containers and cargo being lost at sea to events that took place during the transatlantic slave trade.
The British slave ship, Zong, threw more than 130 enslaved people overboard in 1781, while the ship owners already insured the enslaved people as ship cargo and made a claim of compensation after the incident, The Guardian reported.
“For Crumpler, the Zong is but one of many examples of the roots and routes of racial capitalism, where power and profit are prioritized over life,” appears on the plaque.
Abby Eron, the Driskell Center’s assistant director, said that this exhibit can push students to think deeper about their participation as consumers in this global economy and not accept things at face value.
“These are really striking works visually, but there is depth there that doesn’t just have to do with art,” Eron said.
According to Eron, the depth also has to do with the broader economy, governance, the degradation of the environment and the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Sampada Aranke, a guest curator of the exhibit and an associate professor of art history and comparative studies at Ohio State University, said that she is grateful to witness the way that people walk away feeling like they have learned something about history after seeing Crumpler’s work.
“Artists are historians, they’re timekeepers,” Aranke said. “They record major political, social, personal events right in their works. They also invite us to think differently.”
Aranke said that the Driskell Center is a powerful place to show Crumpler’s work, especially considering that it is also the home of Crumpler’s archives.
The Driskell Center promotes an inclusive and equitable artistic landscape by engaging with Black artistic expression, according to its website.
“Unless we center Black voices, center Black art and Black artists we’re only getting a version of [American] history that’s incomplete at best and erroneously wrong at worst,” Aranke said.
Crumpler noticed that he wasn’t fairly represented in art museums as a Black man, and was impressed by David Driskell’s seriousness about Black art, he said in the podcast.
“His love for African thought, African creative spirit was so deep, so absolutely serious,” Crumpler said in the podcast. “We need deep scholars, I mean serious as a heart attack, to combat the history of absolute neglect that marked the 20th century.”
Eron noted that we are lucky to have a place at UMD that helps fulfill the mission of centering Black artists.
“To be connected to the history of David Driskell is a great honor,” Crumpler said in the podcast. “His spirit is with this place and I am happy I got to walk through his spiritual home which is this great center.”
Featured Image: Dewey Crumpler’s artwork displayed at the David C. Driskell Center on Tuesday, October 22. Photo by Anastasia Mekulova.