Jack Whitten's London Solo Show Explores Abstraction and Identity Through Process

Jack Whitten's first solo exhibition in London at Hauser & Wirth from 27 September to 18 November 2017 featured abstract works from 1979 to 1989, grappling with questions of race and universality. The 78-year-old artist's paintings, previously highlighted in Tate Modern's Soul of a Nation, include geometric pieces like Annabelle II (1984) with incised shapes and gouged circles. His DNA series (1979) used custom raking tools to create gridded patterns, while Site paintings (1986) incorporated moulds from urban objects like manhole covers. Large dedications to figures such as Andy Warhol and Willi Smith, like Ode to Andy: For Andy Warhol (1986) and Willi Meets The Keeper (For Willi Smith) (1987), combined textured casts with paint. Whitten described his art as photographing thoughts, aiming to externalize subjective impressions. The show's catalogue quotes him on this process. Works like Black Monolith I, A Tribute to James Baldwin (1988) with its black surface evoked skin textures and racial identity, underscoring the exhibition's tension between formalism and African-American experience. The review from ArtReview's December 2017 issue noted the problematic aspects of linking all African-American art to black identity, as seen in Soul of a Nation.