Exhibitions

Romare Bearden, Prevalence of Ritual: Conjur Woman as an Angel, 1964. Collage on board, 9 3/16 x 6 7/16 inches. Lent by John P. Axelrod. Art ©Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA.

Conjuring Bearden will provide a deeper look into a central and recurring theme in the work of American artist Romare Bearden (1912-1988), one of the most respected American artists of the second half of the 20th century. This exhibition will be the first to explore in Bearden's art the theme of the "conjure" woman. Through a combination of spiritual interventions, psychology and herbalism, the "conjurer" or the Caribbean "Obeah Man" transforms the world.

This focused and thematic presentation of Bearden's interest in African American spirituality will be related to his artistic experimentations with form and technique. It will trace his visual musings on African, Caribbean and African American expressive mysticism and examine his magical re-invention - via the collage and photomontage - of pictorial space and time.

The exhibition will build upon the findings of The Art of Romare Bearden, a major retrospective organized by the National Gallery of Art that is touring nationwide. Many works in the Nasher at Duke exhibition will be on view for the first time.

Born in Mecklenburg County, N.C., Romare Bearden was a young child when his parents moved to New York City. The Bearden home became a meeting place for such Harlem Renaissance luminaries as writer Langston Hughes, painter Aaron Douglas and musician Duke Ellington. Bearden's work explores themes of black identity and culture, reflects his wide range of interests and explores overlapping themes of religion, ritual practice, everyday life, jazz clubs, history, mythology and literature.

This exhibition is organized by Richard J. Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University, and four of his undergraduate students. Powell's many publications include Black Art: A Cultural History (Thames and Hudson, 2002). The co-curators of the exhibition are Margaret Di Giulio, Alicia Garcia, Victoria Trout and Christine Wang.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Powell and other Bearden scholars. Several special programs will be organized in conjunction with the exhibition, including a symposium, jazz concert and a film series. Please see the calendar listings for more details.

The Conjuring Bearden exhibition and its programming have been made possible by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Duke University's Office of the President and The Duke Endowment, the Provost's Common Fund, the Duke Semans Fine Arts Foundation, the Women's Studies Program, the Department of Art and Art History, and the African and African American Studies Program. Additional funding was provided by Primus First Realty and Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC. This project also received support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art.