Bernard Lumpkin and his husband, Carmine Boccuzzi, have been collecting art since 2010, primarily young and emerging artists of African descent, in addition to established names like Mark Bradford, Henry Taylor and Kara Walker, the painter and printmaker famous for her trademark black, cut-paper silhouettes.
Their 400-and-growing works inspired the book Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists, edited by Antwaun Sargent—the title an obvious nod to author Lorraine Hansberry, as well as Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone—which then led to a traveling exhibit of the same name. For the first time, viewers can absorb Lumpkin and Boccuzzi’s private collection outside of their New York home.
The organizers chose university museums and small art venues so that their treasures can attract as wide an audience as possible. Launched in 2019 on the East Coast, the traveling show, “Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art,” makes its latest stop at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History.
“Bernard and Carmine to their credit as art patrons have really localized institutions,” says Sargent, who’s the exhibit co-curator along with Matt Wycoff. “It’s making sure that communities have the fullest expression of what’s contemporary art. It’s a commitment to bring this work to places that are different. Cities and institutions that are not always a part of the conversation. These institutions are very important to the idea of art being able to reach everybody—and ultimately to the artists who want to make sure that they engage with many different types of publics, and not just one kind of public. It allows the audience to encounter this work, so it’s a win-win, because audiences and artists need each other.”
The paintings, photographs, sculpture, embroidery and mixed media by 50 artists explore race, politics, history, family, gender and sexuality. In “Untitled (People’s World),” for example, Sadie Barnette takes pages from a 500-page file the FBI kept on her father, Rodney Barnette, a prominent Black Panther Party member in Oakland. Barnette, one of the some half-dozen California artists in the display, alters and personalizes the papers with blotches of paint and sparkly fuschia spray paint.
D’Angelo Lovell Williams adds a modern twist to Belgian artist Rene Magritte’s 1928 “The Lovers.” In that painting, a couple is kissing while their faces are covered in white cloth. In Williams’ print, also called “The Lovers,” two black men are kissing while their faces are covered in black do-rags, worn backwards. Williams is not only subverting the classics but also making a statement about black queer love in modern art and in the black community.
“It’s a contemporary take on that original image,” Sargent says. “He’s using do-rags to flip the gender and to make you sort of accept same-sex love.”
“The Great Wall,” by Derrick Adams—whose paintings have been seen in TV hits like Insecure and Empire—features Mike Tyson standing behind a row of bricks. Undoubtedly one of the biggest black icons in the world, the famous athlete is also a convicted rapist. Adams addresses the duality of his fame and asks whether that wall of bricks protects or imprisons him.
“It’s not just about Mike Tyson, the icon and celebrity,” Sargent says, “but this notion of icons and black figures and the way they operate in popular culture.”
One of the most celebrated artists in the exhibit, Henry Taylor has been the subject of many solo shows and retrospectives, including a recent 2022 survey at L.A.’s MOCA. He also collaborated with Pharrell Williams for last year’s Louis Vuitton collection. In “Split,” he paints a man and a woman standing on the street in front of a brick wall, a typical L.A. scene from the L.A. born Taylor.
“He comes from a long tradition of artists and people who are thinking about Los Angeles on their own terms,” Sargent says. “His painting is just another perspective on California and visualization of California culture.”
MAH is the last scheduled date on the tour, though Lumpkin and Bocucci plan to keep the display running for several more years.
“The audience makes the art,” Sargent says. “My hope for any exhibit I do is that the audience has a rich engagement, whatever that might mean to them. They might be taken by the way Kerry James Marshall renders a portrait, or they might be taken by the way Eric N. Mack uses fabric to think about materiality and history. But I really do think that sort of question is left up to the viewer.”
Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art runs Aug. 23–Dec. 29 at MAH, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. The museum is open Thursday-Sunday; $8-$10.
