The Amistad Collection:

With all the hoopla that preceded Steven Spielberg's motion picture Amistad, an art exhibition inspired by the same event--an 1839 slave revolt--opened in Manhattan last winter to enthusiastic audiences.  While anticipation over the film yielded less than lukewarm ticket sales, the art show, "The Amistad Collection," became the real hit. 

Like the film, the exhibition depicts a rebellion by fifty-three Africans who were illegally sold into slavery and who were later tried for murder, then freed and repatriated.

The exhibition--the first such collaboration of artists on a single subject--includes paintings, drawings, and sculpture by well-known and emerging artists from the United States, the Caribbean, Central America and Africa.

With a healthy first run at the New World Art Center and a recent opening at Medgar Evers Community College, the exhibition is positive proof that there is widespread and growing interest in black art.

The collection of more than 100 includes paintings, drawings and sculpture, and has potential as an educational tool, both artistically and historically.  Artistically, visitors will see oils, pastels, acrylics, sculptures, and many other mediums in the collection.  Education about the Middle Passage and the Amistad revolt of 1839 is addressed whenever the collection is shown.  Although the Amistad collection is significantly larger, and features various artists and mediums, the exhibition can be compared to Jacob Lawrence's

"Migration Series" in terms of its artistic and historical significance.  Lawrence's series depicted the migration from South to North of hundreds of thousands of African Americans during the Depression.  Works in that series were enthusiastically purchased by The Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection.

The Amistad exhibition includes works by Tom Feelings, a much- celebrated artist who, for the last forty years, has produced works depicting the Middle Passage, the horrific journey of slaves from Africa to various ports in the Americas.  His "Middle Passage"1, and 3 in this exhibition are among the most moving pieces in the collection.

No less moving is Curtis James' "awakenings"-- a horrifying portrait of a mother and child huddled with other slaves in a cage--which tugs at your heart.  Mr. James, an award--winning artist, attended Pratt Institute, where he received his Master of Fine Art.

Jamaican artists Hilton Plummer's "Amistad"1, 2 and 3--mixed
media on three panels--brought tears to the eyes of a fourth-grader who visited the exhibition with her class.  The three-panel work depicts broken chains on a seashore, with gold bars representing the cargo, a calming seascape, and what appears to be the blood pouring from the sky.  "The spirits are crying" is the interpretation of another visiting fourth-grader.

The most graphic and eye-catching works is "Down in History," Talle Bamazi's contribution.  The work grabs you immediately with a chained slave.