Kean University Students and Alumni Spotlight Art in Memory Of George Floyd

By Tasha Dowbachuk|Published by April 26, 2021

A powerful activist art exhibit by Kean University students and alumni honoring George Floyd was opened this month, representing the deep emotion of many on campus as the world watched former Minneapolis police officer Derrick Chauvin found guilty on all three counts for his murder.  

Unveiled in a virtual tour just five days before Chauvin’s guilty verdict on April 20, the collection of 14 art pieces in the the Human Rights Institute illustrates an assembly of reactions not only towards Floyd’s murder, but also the lives that were taken at the hands of police brutality and systemic racism in the United States. 

A video recording taken by a 17-year-old bystander captured footage of Floyd in police custody on May 25, with Chauvin  shown kneeling on his neck as Floyd gasped that he couldn’t breathe. The video garnered outrage and launched protests around the world.

The virtual art exhibition was curated by Dr. Jacquelyn Tuerk-Stonberg, Kean Art History professor of 17 years, as part of her personal commitment to support students in exploring the historical power of imagery. 

“The creative act of making art and discussing art has special power to express personal, genuine and sincere feelings and thoughts, [and] the hope is that these artists’ voices for change will encourage other students to engage visual art to explore their own reaction to racism,” Dr. Tuerk-Stonberg said.

As the nation continues to protest in the fight towards ending racial inequality, the backbone of the exhibition is demonstrated through the passion and commitment of 14 artistic voices unified in their call for racial justice and to support one another in the midst of public violence. 

Kean University President Dr. Lamont Repollet commemorated the exhibit on April 15 with an opening address followed by a nine-minute virtual tour produced by Tuerk-Stonberg, featuring oil, acrylic and mixed media artworks as well as photography of a student and alumni activist group called, Just Some Bums and Mary Clare. 

The event — sponsored by Kean’s History Department and its Art History program, as well as University Relations, Kean Galleries and The Human Rights Institute — also included guest speaker, Dr. Ruth Feldstein, author and associate producer of PBS American Master series “How It Feels To Be Free,” which documents the lives of famous female entertainers, Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier.  

Over 100 people attended the virtual event and listened to the artistic descriptions of four artists within the student and alumni group: Cheyonne Thompson, Marielena Guthrie, Mary Clare King and Tino Cook. 

At the start of the presentation, viewers were introduced to a total of nine portraits of Cook’s artwork featuring the faces of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, George Junius Stinny Jr., Tamir Rice, Elijah McClain, Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley Jones and Heather Heyer.

Cook said that his artwork is in direct response to the hypocrisy, disenfranchisement and bloodshed of his people in the United States and around the world. 

“I want to bring truth to how far we have come and the things we have achieved being under a foundation of slavery and terror,” he said. “These things sound like they’re back in the 1800s, but they’re not. It’s things that’s going on all the time, my father lived it, now I have to live it and my grandparents lived it even worse.” 

He continued by stating that when the public discusses racial matters and says they are getting better, he believes that people have been trying. 

“What the young generation is doing today, I see them intermingling in college and everybody is dealing with everybody,” Cook said. “I think that’s one of the answers and to realize [that] just because I’m Black, that don’t mean I don’t have feelings, emotions or care for my children or want an education; I want the American Dream.”

Dr. Feldstein congratulated the artists through their courageous call to action and stated that the student alumni group is now a part of a long tradition of artists who have made similar choices that drew attention to racial injustice. 

“Across centuries, artists have used different forms and mediums to challenge African American oppression and to affirm black visibility, as all of you have done so powerfully with your art,” Feldstein said. 

Feldstein’s documentary series formulates the same call for racial justice through the tracings of how the six African American entertainment icons left their impact on and off stage to help advance the Civil Rights Movement and to reshape expectations of how black women are represented in an industry which perpetuates racial stereotypes.

“To most people in that era that I write about [the 1950s and 60s], most Americans didn’t march, they didn’t boycott, they didn’t join civil rights organizations,” Feldstein said. 

Feldstein explained that what they saw on stage in theatres, or television screens in their homes, in films where they bought records and listened to music, is considered an uniquely powerful force through which they engage in black politics, where the public has learned for the first time what civil rights activism was and could be. 

The revolutionary acts of activism through songs and performances by black women entertainers was transformative for both black and white audiences through the carefully selective representations of the black community to overcome discriminatory roles in the media.

As Feldstein listens and sees the art that students and alumni have created, she continues by stating that she sees so much of what the artists today have in common with the women she writes about.

“Both groups across decades have stoked citizen engagement and encouraged everyday people to reimagine what is possible,” Feldstein states. 

“Both groups across decades have attended to issues with intersectionality as they make art and culture essential to the black freedom struggle.”

Dr. Feldstein called for students and the viewers of the event to continue to turn towards arts and culture to help make demand change and to do the everyday work of healing.

The “Kean Student and Alumni Protest Art Exhibition, in memory of George Floyd” exhibit is part of a larger effort to react to Floyd’s murder through art. It began two weeks after Floyd’s murder in May 2020 when a  group of concerned Kean students and alumni organized a public protest in Jersey City on Newark Avenue, using their artworks, which are presented in the Human rights Institute art exhibit.

In July, the group then held a protest on Kean University’s campus called “Art As Protest In The Art, Race And Protest HistoryTalks Community Form,” sponsored by the History Department and viewable on YouTube. In August 2020, the movement developed beyond Kean through the youth rally to action, targeted towards high school students in Verona, Cedar Grove, and Montclair titled, “How Students Can Protest Racism.”

Kean’s exhibit runs through April in the hallway of The Human Rights Institute. The Kean community is invited to share their photography and artworks of activism with  Dr. Tuerk-Stonberg by emailing their work to jtuerk@kean.edu.

 

 

 

 

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