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As one enters “I Return With A Feeling Of Us: The Photography of Anthony Barboza,” the current exhibition at the New Bedford Art Museum, the first image one encounters is a portrait of James Baldwin.
The revered author best known for the novels “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “Giovanni’s Room” and “The Fire Next Time,” a collection of essays, is perfectly captured by Barboza, with his hands clasped behind his back and the shadow of his profile cast on the light dappled surface behind him.
The photograph is enthralling, somehow revealing contradictory aspects of Baldwin’s being all at once: vulnerability offset by fortitude, and a melancholy tempered by a subdued and quiet bliss.
Baldwin wrote: “Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.”
I suspect Barboza took those words to heart. Born in 1944, the New Bedford native of Cape Verdean descent is having his (first!) retrospective exhibition at the Art Museum, in conjunction with the New Bedford Historical Society. And it is a powerful, moving and sometimes wonderfully nostalgic look at Black culture, history and society.
Back to Baldwin: In his 1962 essay “The Creative Process,” he wrote, “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”
It is then clear that Barboza loves the arts and artists of all sorts: writers, painters, actors, dancers, jazz musicians, models, rappers, bluesmen and boxers.
Yeah, boxers. Boxing is not only the “Sweet Science,” it’s the “Noble Art.” And one of its practitioners was Marvin Hagler, the undisputed American champion of the middleweight division from 1980-1987, who legally changed his name to “Marvelous Marvin Hagler” in 1982.
Barboza’s portrait of Hagler is no-nonsense and mildly intimidating, without any over-the-top bravado necessary. Bare-chested with arms crossed, he stares straight back into the lens. But is he an artist? All boxers are artists. They’re poets, dancers and actors. Think Ali. Consider Frazier. Muse on Marciano.
Barboza is a master of light and shadow and his 1981 portrait of the actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis is damned near perfect. Married in 1948, they were Harlem royalty. Appearing together often on stage, television and film, they may best be known for the characters Mother Sister and Da Mayor in Spike Lee’s 1989 masterpiece “Do the Right Thing,” as well as appearing in other Lee films, including “Jungle Fever” and “Malcolm X.”
There is a portrait of the late visual artist Jacob Lawrence, famed for his boldly hued paintings depicting scenes from Black history and contemporary life, rendered in a style that he referred to as “dynamic cubism.” In the 1972 photo, Lawrence appears quite dapper, wearing a sharp suit and tie and a brimmed cap. His eyeglasses are in his hand. He looks rather serious but there is the suggestion of a gentle smile on the horizon. Barboza knows the perfect moment, whether it be when to click or when to curate.
In many of the portraits, alongside the name of the subject and the year in which the image was taken, there is an indication of the individual’s primary occupation: artist, musician, or model for example. Although thought of primarily as a painter, beneath Lawrence, it reads “author.” He was also a writer and illustrator of books for children, including “The Great Migration” and “Harriet and the Promised Land,” both from 1993.
A 1976 portrait of Romare Bearden, a Black painter of mixed ancestry, including Cherokee and Italian roots, vibrates with a low-key intensity. With seemingly muted lighting, the artist appears comfortable within his own being as again, a grin seems to be on the verge of rising to the surface, whether Barboza elicited it or not.
There are three distinct colorful Polaroid portraits of young men from Barboza’s 1993 Black Border series. They are “Still I See Ya! The Voices,” “The Red Tongue,” and “Emasculation of A Black Man.” In the series, the black borders of the film are displayed around the portraits proper.
He explains: “When you put black borders together, there’s no end and no beginning. There’s no line here. That meant that each of these people would relate in some ways to the other and also to me.” And arguably, to the viewer as well.
There are many more portraits of musicians in the exhibition, including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Alicia Keys, Mos Def, Jay-Z, Gil Scott-Heron, Booker T. Washington, Sun Ra, and Erykah Badu, “the Queen of Neo Soul.”
But that one of a beautifully beatific Aretha Franklin back in 1971? Wow … just wow. Barboza noted that he wanted “to get to this dream state — the feeling you have when you’re listening to music and you close your eyes.”
And so he told her to close her eyes and imagine waiting for a kiss. I assure you, it worked.
Barboza’s 1980 highly stylized portrait of model Toukie Smith, looking a bit like a Las Vegas showgirl of that era, works in no small part due to the elaborate set and a number of decorative elements absent from much of his other portraiture.
In what may be the most intimate and personal photograph in the exhibition, 1985’s “The Path — Laura’s Eye” is a portrait of an attractive woman in profile in the backseat of a moving automobile. Perhaps nothing more than a serendipitous moment, but her eye glows in the darkness of the night city, likely illuminated by the headlight of a passing taxicab.
Throughout the exhibition are groupings of photographs taken in the Middle East, Africa, Washington, D.C., Florida and elsewhere, but it is the 1970s Harlem photographs that take center stage.
His “Easter Sunday in Harlem” is a charming and disarming photo of three boys, maybe 12 or 13, in suits, polished shoes and fedora-like hats, goofing around in front of a heavily tagged brickwall.
“Stepping Out in Harlem” features a well-dressed woman going down a few steps while unbeknownst to her, a man behind her smiles while he stares at her bottom. Wait, scratch that — she probably knew it.
Barboza’s aesthetically striking, socially conscious photographs, and his ability to connect to culturally significant individuals and garner their trust, make him part of a continuum that goes back to the era of the Harlem Renaissance photographer James Van Der Zee.
In the 1920s and ’30s, Van Der Zee photographed Harlem’s growing middle class and was hired to take pictures at weddings, parties and myriad of social events. He began to photograph celebrities and sports stars, including Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, boxer Joe Louis, and the founder and preacher of the United House of Prayer for All People.
The latter’s name was Charles M. Grace, better known here in New Bedford (where he sold “keys to heaven”) as “Sweet Daddy” Grace. There is a statue of him outside of his mausoleum in the Pine Grove Cemetery.
Barboza is more than a local guy who made it. He’s a master photographer, on a par with Van Der Zee.
How is this only his first retrospective exhibition? Who knows … just go see it. And be wowed.
“I Return With A Feeling Of Us: The Photography of Anthony Barboza” is on display at the New Bedford Art Museum, 608 Pleasant St. until Nov. 23.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org.
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