Inspired by the Black Power movement and active as a feminist in the New York art world in the 1970s and ‘80s, Howardena Pindell favored a craft-inspired aesthetic. Her choice of materials aligned with her commitment to political activism. Reflecting her conceptual and material interest in print- and paper-making, Kyoto: Positive/Negative incorporates personal references into abstract forms. The use of rice paper here alludes to the artist’s first trip to Japan in 1979, accompanied by her father, a mathematician. The red dots may allude to a memory of a childhood road trip, when at a root beer stand in northern Kentucky, she and her father were given mugs with red circles on the bottom—a means of designating separate utensils for African Americans under Jim Crow laws.
Posted by Jenée-Daria Strand Howardena Pindell (American, born 1943). Kyoto: Positive/Negative, June 1980. Lithograph, etching, aquatint, and collage with chine colle on paper.B. Brooklyn Museum, Purchased with funds given by the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, 85.48. © artist or artist's estate
