‘Black Like That,’ a new Temple art exhibit bridges Black history and contemporary life

In a city teeming with history, a new art exhibit seeks to remind Philadelphians: Not everyone’s history has been equally included in the city’s historic archive.

On Aug. 30, Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture opened “Black Like That: Our Lives As Living Praxis,” a multisite exhibition exploring Black history and contemporary Black life in Philadelphia. “Black Like That” is anchored at the Temple Contemporary gallery space, and it will include three distinct exhibitions located in the historically Black neighborhoods of West Philly, North Philly, and Germantown that bridge Philly’s Black history to the present.

The exhibition is supported by a $300,000 grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. It features the work of three Black Philadelphia-based artists: Karyn Olivier, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and Pat Phillips.

“Our project is rooted in the understanding that Black culture is a living, active expression of archival practice,” Jova Lynne, Tyler’s director of exhibitions and public programs, said in a statement. “This exhibition is not just a showcase; it’s a dialogue with history, a narrative interwoven with the legacies and movements of Black life in America’s first capital.”

Once McClodden decided to center her exhibition on the life and legacy of the singer Gladys Bentley, she said she “refused” to tell a neat, sanitized story about her. Bentley was born in North Philly in 1907 and later became a prominent blues singer and performer during the Harlem Renaissance. Bentley was known for her queerness; she had a masculine, large appearance, and sang funny, risqué songs about her love for women.

As the Lavender Scare grew in the ’50s and ’60s, Bentley’s career took a downturn as she pivoted away from the identity that built her popularity. The little that was written about her was not always flattering, and there aren’t many recordings of her songs.

McClodden said she wanted to resist piecing together a cohesive narrative about Bentley. Instead, she sought to lean into the obscurity and explore how queer Black people are archived.

“Here’s someone who exists in the margins. And what does it look like to look at those margins?” said McClodden, who is a Black, gay woman.

Her exhibit at Tyler about Bentley includes a series of original leather paintings, a new poem commissioned from a Black, queer 77-year-old woman, and a rare photo portrait of the performer from the late 1920s.

McClodden’s North Philly exhibition won’t be found in just one place, though. She shot a video on infrared black-and-white film, showing the area around Temple University where Bentley used to live that has since become Temple buildings. The video will be mounted on the bed of a truck that will circle through the Temple area.

“The truck will imitate a kind of space of frustration of not being able to access this area and creating a haunting,” she said. “To do something in North Philly, and actually have the gallery be in the same vicinity of where a figure lived and walked around, I think gives a chance for the students and the faculty to understand that there are people who lived here. There are folks who actually shape culture, Black culture, and culture in this country here.”

Pat Phillips, who moved to North Philly four years ago, is the newest to Philadelphia among the three artists. But when he learned about the history of MOVE and its bombing, it felt like a familiar story.

“Learning about John Africa, it’s this sort of idea of standing your ground and Black folks demanding a space that was promised to them, but not given,” he said. “Being from the South, [that’s] very much instilled.”

Phillips grew up in Louisiana, where his dad used to work in the prison system. In his hometown, people bought and wore snakeskin belts that were made by incarcerated people. Those experiences stuck with him, and his work since then has explored the American Black experience and how policing, migration, and gentrification interact with the pursuits of Black liberty.

His contribution to “Black Like That” includes several large paintings, like one titled Stand Down that features a water hose made of snakeskin being stepped on by a boot, reappropriating the image of the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Phillips said he wanted his image to serve people whose rights are truly being stomped upon and remain resilient.

“The image symbolizes a sense of strength and a willingness to stand one’s ground despite the odds. In this case, a history of Black Philadelphians dealing with over-policing or gentrification,” he said by email.

Phillips’ neighborhood exhibition will transform a pop-up space in West Philly, Pentridge Station, where he will paint murals and get community members involved. He acknowledged that his art tackles heavy themes, but said that he ultimately aims for it to be uplifting.

“I’m hoping people ... see themselves in some of the paintings,” he said. “In some of the despair, but at the same time, see a certain level of hope. It’s sort of light at the end of the tunnel.”

As Olivier considered what the exhibition for her Germantown neighborhood would be, she said she wanted to do something that would engage her neighbors and community. Olivier, who is also a professor at the Tyler School, landed on the Germantown potter’s field, a now vacant, fenced-off lawn that was once a Colonial burial ground for the neighborhood’s free Black residents.

The potter’s field has long been a contentious issue in Germantown, particularly since it was closed off for affordable housing construction several years ago in order to preserve and honor the space.

“We think about Philadelphia being in the North and being where free Black people were. But the fact that white folks who lived in Germantown bought this piece of land so that Black folks could be buried not with them speaks about the segregation that existed. It was very, very real here,” Olivier said.

Olivier has been talking with her neighbors, and said she believes there is enough support now to make a more productive use of the one-acre field. In October, she plans to host an event at the field that will bring people together to decide on next steps. Olivier envisions something simple that people can interact with, like a memorial garden that honors the dead who were once buried there.

She is contributing several sculptural pieces to the Temple Contemporary gallery, focused on everyday building materials and other objects that Black people have used, styled, and reinvented to make meaning.

One sculpture titled Grief and Loss (AZ Family Discount) is inspired by how people originally put up blankets over their windows to keep inclement weather out, but these were eventually replaced by curtains that are used to for privacy and to project wealth and status.

“I was thinking about the desire we all have to make our homes beautiful, no matter what economic status you have,” she said.

“What does it mean to take the ordinary and try to make it extraordinary? What does it mean for me as a Black person?”

“Black Like That” will be on view until Dec. 7 at Temple Contemporary, 2001 N. 13th St., Phila. Noon-8 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Admission is free to the public with photo ID.