Noel Anderson: Image..Black Flesh

The title of the exhibition, Image..Black Flesh?, suggests uncertainty or an incomplete thought. The use of two dots, rather than three used for a standard ellipsis, makes readers pause and think: is this an error? If not, what do they mean?

The two dots could be eyes that are part of an invisible face. For Anderson, language and the materials he uses to make his tapestries and paper objects have a bodily presence. Anderson uses fragmentation and abstraction to think about the ways Black people—Black bodies—have been represented and misrepresented through imagery.

Noel W Anderson — American, 1981

Courtesy of the Artist and NWA Studios

Untitled (TBD), 2023

Dyed, and distressed stretched cotton tapestry

Hands-up (dogon), 2018-2019

Handmade paper object

Hands-up (dogon) is an intentional distortion of a photograph of a seven-hundred-year-old wooden sculpture. The Dogon are an Indigenous people who have inhabited present-day Mali for centuries. It is believed that the male figure in the sculpture has his hands raised in prayer.

Male Figure with Raised Arms was one of Noel W. Anderson’s favorites to see during frequent visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the aftermath of Michael Brown’s 2014 murder in Ferguson, Missouri, the phrase “hands up, don’t shoot” changed how he viewed the statue’s raised arms within the context of anti-Black violence.

Hampton’s Feet, 2018-2019

Handmade paper object

Fred Hampton (1948 – 1969) was a civil rights leader and chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. He was killed during a raid on his West Side apartment on the morning of Dec. 4, 1969. The police fired 99 shots, killing the 21-year-old Hampton and his fellow Panther, 22-year-old Mark Clark.

Somnambulist, 2022

Lychees on bleached cotton tapestry

A somnambulist is a sleepwalker. The word comes from Latin: somnus (god of sleep) and ambulare (to walk). This is a portrait of a male figure from Anderson’s collection of mugshots.

Anderson’s artwork is made of many different materials: bleached tapestry fiber, basketball leather, dried lychees, dyed cotton, and handmade paper made from cotton pulp. Which textures catch your attention? Why?

The Professional, 2018-2019

Handmade paper object

Die Leitung, 2018-2019

Handmade paper object

Die Leitung is German for “the line.” This image is of a police raid in Philadelphia from the 1970s that was part of an FBI file. There is a white and a Black police officer standing behind a handcuffed line of Black men stripped of their clothing.

The distortion and abstraction in Anderson’s work is reminiscent of old TV screens with static, wobbly images. For Anderson, images and objects from the past are not fixed in time. They are living and acting in our present moment through our interactions with them.

Untitled (TBD), 2023

Dyed, and distressed stretched cotton tapestry

Untitled (TBD), 2023

Picked and distressed stretched cotton tapestry

Anderson’s relationship with his artwork and process is physical and personal:

“I’m trying to grapple with the possibility of my own death. As such, I treat the works like they’re bodies. Treating them like a body creates a kind of sensitivity and touch and care and nurturing of the material that not treating them that way just won’t get me. It seems to me that if I objectify the work, I may not be as sensitive to its needs, and I may not be able to respond to it.”

—Noel W. Anderson, June 2021 interview with Robert R. Shane

Read full interview here:

Spud Webb, 2018-2019

Handmade paper object

Spud Webb, one of the shortest players in NBA history at 5’6” tall, won the 1986 Slam Dunk Contest. Growing up, Anderson played basketball and football, believing that becoming an athlete was one of the only career paths available to him. In his representations of athletes, he questions how stereotypes surrounding Black masculinity and sports overshadow the potential for Black youth to excel in other fields like art.