Laying It On

Howardena Pindell’s Untitled #4D

Image courtesy of the artist and the Rose Art Museum

Rose Art Museum
Through May 19

Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen, a traveling show at the Rose Art Museum, reveals her ardent experimentation. Across a 50-year career, from figural drawings and abstract paintings to conceptual works and photography, Pindell has played with fantastical color schemes (as in Untitled #4D, above), delved into deconstructionism, and reveled in circles and serialized forms. Works of collaged strips of textiles—ripped, then re-sewn—are painted over. Some are embedded with texts, numbers, or surreal images; others are adorned with glitter, talcum powder, and perfume. In her New York City studio, Pindell has hole-punched thousands of paper dots that she sprinkles or clumps onto canvases, layering on acrylic or spray paint, to create, by turns, raw textures and dreamy, abstract, impressionistic depths.

Other multimedia collages reflect both her world travels and her social-justice causes. Her 1980 filmed performance Free, White and 21 examines racism. It marked her return to work after a near-fatal car crash, and an enduring resolve to create. 

Click here for the March-April 2019 issue table of contents

Read more articles by Nell Porter-Brown

You might also like

Salsa Squared

Latin dancing fills the streets in Harvard Square   

Pony Plunges

Scrapbooking a woman who rode horses into the sea

Sister Acts and Cyanotypes

Julia Rooney’s paintings cross the analog-digital divide.

Most popular

Harvard Layoffs Continue, with More to Come

In the wake of federal government actions, several Harvard schools and institutes are cutting costs.

Agree to Disagree

The Undergraduate asks if intellectualism is really on life support.

The Professor Who Quantified Democracy

Erica Chenoweth’s data shows how—and when—authoritarians fall.

Explore More From Current Issue

Harvard Medalists

Four people honored for exceptional service to the University

Will the U.S. Dollar Always Be So Powerful?

The preeminence of U.S. currency at risk

Saluting the 2025 Centennial Medalists

Four alumni of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences are honored.