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Kylie Knott

Discrimination has reared its ugly head many times during the life of American artist and curator Howardena Pindell.
One particular incident during her childhood left an imprint that continues to shape the 81-year-old’s work.
Born in Philadelphia, Pindell grew up at a time when so-called Jim Crow laws enforced the segregation of white and black people in the American South.
When she was eight, on a trip with her father to the Southern state of Kentucky, she noticed utensils marked with a circle. It was her first encounter with the racist code system.

“My father ordered two mugs of root beer and both had large red circles painted on the bottom,” says Pindell via Zoom from her home in New York.
“I asked my father what it was, and he explained that it was marked so we did not use the same utensils as white people,” she says.
“I was shocked as a child trying to figure out why this really needed to be done.”
Circular motifs are common in Pindell’s work, which has addressed social and political issues from racism and gender inequality to the Vietnam war, homelessness and the Aids crisis.
Circles feature prominently in the nine new works she created for “Deep Sea, Deep Space”, her first solo exhibition in Asia. The exhibition is at White Cube Hong Kong, in the city’s Central neighbourhood, until January 8.

Pindell has taken that traumatic childhood memory and turned it around. The “beautiful” circular symbols in her work reflect her fascination with the ocean, the cosmos, quantum mechanics, science fiction and microbiology.
“The circle is an iconic form in nature: the sun, the moon, the depiction of atoms,” she says. “The solar system gives me a sense of the enormity of the universe.”
Space and science are powerful forces in Pindell’s works, her interest in them fuelled by her mathematician father, who gave her a microscope instead of dolls when she was a child.
I went to school during the Civil Rights Movement and ran into a lot of rejection
Howardena Pindell
Some of Pindell’s works on show in Hong Kong feature her signature spray-painting technique, which she first used in the 1970s to create hundreds of tiny dots using a template made with a hole puncher.
Equally impressive are the textured works City Lights … Night Flight and Untitled 31 (The Solar System Is Beige), made with hundreds of tiny, hole-punched discs meticulously applied to the canvas.
They are a nod to her “Tesseract” series, which she started in 2022.

In the “Deep Sea” works featured in the exhibition, Pindell captures her love of the ocean, which both intrigues and frightens her.
“I have a complicated relationship with water after my father took me deep-sea fishing when I was a child,” she says. “We were caught in a category three hurricane with 125mph [200km/h] winds and 60-foot [20-metre] waves. I was terrified,” she says.
Despite that experience, Pindell says she would love to go scuba diving. Pushing forward is in her nature.

After studying painting at Boston University and Yale University in the US, Pindell – whose mediums also include collage, drawing and video – became the first black woman curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, a role she filled for 12 years.
She co-founded A.I.R. Gallery – New York’s first women’s cooperative art gallery – and in the 1970s and 80s published several articles on the discriminatory practices of museums and the wider art world.
She experienced racism from a young age. “I went to school during the Civil Rights Movement [1954-1968] and ran into a lot of rejection.”


While in nursery, where she was the only child of colour, a teacher tied her to a bed. “She could not stand having a black child using the same toilet facilities as the white children.
“Some parents, if they found their child had a black friend, they would move them to another university or tell me directly to leave their child alone. In one instance, a parent offered the art department at Boston University money to get rid of me.”
Another teacher lowered Pindell’s grades based on her skin colour. “I still graduated with honours,” she says.
As a curator, she recalls attending a reception at one of New York’s major museums. “I had an invitation and when I walked in, someone said to me, ‘What are you doing here?’” There have been many such incidents.


In 1980, she made a 12-minute video called Free, White and 21 based on her experiences of discrimination in the art world. In the parody piece, Pindell tells stories about her past and also wears a blond wig to play a white woman who criticises her. It was made around the time she quit MoMA.
Today, there is a belated attempt to redress the long-term bias in art history and the art market, with increasing representation of female and non-white artists in exhibitions and in auctions.
Pindell, who has exhibited widely within the US, is becoming increasingly known around the world.

Most recently, she sold a piece for US$1.75 million at this year’s Art Basel Paris. Produced in 1975, Untitled is a significant work from her early years when she pioneered her spray-painting technique.
Looking ahead, Pindell, like many Americans, is concerned about the new political climate and its potential impact on racial equality.
While she says there are more artists of colour showing their work, she wants to see better representation of Native American, First Nation, Latino and Asian artists.
“I also want to write my memoir, but I just have to get through this rough period with my physical health,” she says – she is recovering from recent knee surgery.
She also struggles with memory loss stemming from a near-fatal car accident in 1979 that led to her cathartic series “Autobiography”.

An extension of that series pays homage to her travels through India, Africa and Japan with inspiring works on tradition, spirituality and ritual.
While Pindell’s mind and body may be letting her down, the artist’s curiosity for life is as strong as ever.
“What keeps me going is lifelong learning. I can sit on Google for hours and read about astronomy, read about archaeology,” she says.
“Howardena Pindell: Deep Sea, Deep Space”, White Cube Hong Kong, 50 Connaught Road, Central, tel: 2592 2000. Ends January 8, 2025.


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American artist Howardena Pindell on how racism shaped her work, now on show in Hong Kong

American artist Howardena Pindell, whose first solo exhibition in Asia is at White Cube Hong Kong until January 8, 2025. Photo: Nathan Keay

Pindell grew up in the United States during the Jim Crow era. She became the first black woman curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the 1970s. Photo: Howardena Pindell

Howardena Pindell’s Tesseract 20 is part of the Deep Sea, Deep Space exhibition at White Cube Hong Kong. Photo: White Cube

Howardena Pindell’s City Lights, Night Flight features hundreds of tiny, hole-punched discs. Photo: White Cube

Howardena Pindell’s Deep Sea 8, featured in the Hong Kong exhibition, is one of the works that captures her love for the ocean. Photo: White Cube

Howardena Pindell’s Tesseract 18, featured in the exhibition. Photo: White Cube

Howardena Pindell’s Tesseract 19 (Deep Space). Pindell began her Tesseract series in 2022. Photo: White Cube

Howardena Pindell’s Untitled 31 (The Solar System Is Beige), like City Lights … Night Flight, features hundreds of tiny discs applied to canvas. Photo: White Cube

Howardena Pindell’s Tesseract 17. Photo: White Cube

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“Piercing the Sky” (2024) by Yin Xiuzhen, part of the artist’s solo exhibition at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai. Photo: courtesy of Beijing Commune

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Lousy’s body paint on a nude woman. The anonymous Hong Kong graffiti artist paints bold designs on young, naked women then photographs them in erotic poses. Photo: Lousy                                                         

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Lifestyle

Arts & Culture

On show at White Cube, the wonders of space and nature, and a racist symbol, shape the art of Pindell, 81, raised in the America of Jim Crow


On show at White Cube, the wonders of space and nature, and a racist symbol, shape the art of Pindell, 81, raised in the America of Jim Crow.


Racism and other prejudice

United States