"How Many Bubbles Are in a Bar of Soap" is not only the title of an artwork in a powerful and thought-provoking new exhibit at a Little Rock gallery, it's a question that some Jim Crow-era Black voters in Alabama were required to answer to cast their ballots as part of a "literacy test." Of course, the answer is impossible to know and was one of several ways Black people in the South were kept from voting.
The fraught history of tactics and policies designed to disenfranchise Black voters in America is the topic of "Where Do We Go From Here? II: Exploring Gerrymandering and Voting," an exhibit by Pine Bluff native Kevin Cole that will be up at Hearne Fine Art through March 4. A reception for the 63-year-old Cole will be held Friday at the gallery and he will give a talk there on Saturday.
The exhibit features Cole's mixed media and sculptural pieces made of aluminum. It debuted last year at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Atlanta and was sponsored by the museum's Working Artist Project. This version of the show actually begins with works displayed in Pyramid Art, Books & Custom Framing, the store owned by Garbo Hearne and that is adjacent to her gallery. Viewers first see "Black to the Future," a large wooden piece that looks like a mailbox painted black with white markings and is labeled "Ballot Box." On a shelf in the box are a stack of unanswerable questions that were once asked of Black voters, according to the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in Montgomery, Ala.
“Dirty South: Arkansas,” 2021, Kevin Cole, mixed media, is part of “Where Do We Go From Here? II: Exploring Gerrymandering and Voting,” an exhibit of Cole’s work at Hearne Fine Art in Little Rock. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Kevin Cole) IMPOSSIBLE ANSWERS
Hanging like silver drapes on each side of the double doors leading into the gallery are works made of etched aluminum strips. On the left is "Creating Obstacles: Florida" in which the state is depicted encircled by the phrase "Make America Responsible in 2024." Written into the aluminum are references to court cases and Rosewood, the Black community in Florida that was attacked and destroyed in 1923 by a mob of white people. To the right is "Creating Obstacles: North Carolina," with the words "Stronger Together Yet So Far Apart," "NAACP," "Dixiecrat" and the names of court cases scrawled into the bright surface.
In the gallery are etched pieces from Cole's "Dirty South" series in which he has cut from aluminum works in the shapes of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi, states where Black votes have been suppressed (Tennessee is displayed in the bookstore space). Applied to areas of each state "map" is dirt from the respective state (the Arkansas piece has dirt from Pine Bluff, Little Rock and Fayetteville, Cole says). There are shards of aluminum embedded into the soil, and references to events in Black history written onto areas of the maps — the Little Rock Nine and so-called "sundown towns" are pointed out in the Arkansas piece. The way Cole incorporates dirt with the aluminum creates a powerful symbol that reminds us of the ground that we share.
"I thought about some of the land that Black folks helped build in this country," he said during an interview last month. "And also how a lot of Blacks were buried and not given proper funerals."
The exhibit includes smaller versions of the "Black to the Future" ballot box, most of which are colorfully painted and have titles like "How Many Bow Ties Come in a Box?," "How Many Seeds in an Okra?" and "How Many Marbles in the Jar?"
Cole, who has lived in Atlanta since 1985, recounts interviews he and his friends conducted with older Black voters across the South who were asked these and similar questions.
"How many black-eyed peas in a bag," he says one person told him. "A woman in Savannah, Ga., said she was asked to recite the Constitution."
The idea to make the ballot box pieces came from Philip Bell Downing, Cole says. Downing was a Black inventor who in 1891 designed the first street letter box, a forerunner to the mailboxes we see today.
“How Many Bubbles in a Bar of Soap,” Kevin Cole, mixed media ballot box, is included in “Where Do We Go From Here? II: Exploring Gerrymandering and Voting,” an exhibit of Cole’s work at Hearne Fine Art in Little Rock. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Kevin Cole) TIED UP POLITICS
Cole's "Gerrymandering" works are a continuation of his "Tied Up in Politics" series that explored lynching in the South. Neckties make several appearances in the Little Rock show, including in the striking "Faith Over Fears," a large tangle of silvery aluminum strips with patches of blue and on "Poll Tax Ties," one of the small ballot boxes.
Not to be missed, either, are Cole's pieces made with colorfully painted tar paper in the gallery's smaller room. The framed strips of tar paper are entwined into abstract, mesmerizing forms that echo what he did with aluminum in "Faith Over Fears."
Cole says the inspiration to create art reflecting on the suppression of Black voters came from a visit to the Legacy Museum and a pair of books — "Freedom Is Not Enough: Black Voters, Black Candidates, and American Presidential Politics (American Political Challenges)," by Ronald W. Walters and "One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy," by Carol Anderson.
"I started to look at the idea of where my work is in terms of voting," says Cole, who graduated from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, has a master's degree in art education from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and a Master of Fine Arts from Northern Illinois University.
Cole's pieces are not just references to the South's troubled past; they speak clearly to issues going on right now. Arkansas' 2021 Reapportionment Plan resulted in a lawsuit last year by four residents and state Rep. Denise Ennett and state Sen. Linda Chesterfield claiming that "lawmakers have given no substantive reason for taking the approximately 23,000 Black voters from the 2nd Congressional District and dividing them between the state's 1st and 4th districts, while replacing those Black voters removed from the 2nd District with voters from virtually all-white Cleburne County," according to a Dec. 28 Democrat-Gazette story by John Lynch.
A three-judge panel dismissed part of the lawsuit in October, but ruled the plaintiffs could expand on their accusations before the judges decided if the suit should be tossed or proceed to trial.
Cole, whose 15-story Coca-Cola Centennial Olympic Mural was featured in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, hopes that his work will help younger people understand the importance of voting.
"I wanted to make this an educational show as well. During this past election, being in Georgia, a swing state, I would hear a lot of young folks saying 'My vote doesn't matter.' If voting was not so important, why would they not want you to vote?"
“Where Do We Go From Here? II: Exploring Gerrymandering and Voting” by Kevin Cole
- Through March 16, Hearne Fine Art, 1001 Wright Ave., Little Rock, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday
- Reception: 5 p.m. Friday; artist talk 2 p.m. Saturday; virtual artist talk 3 p.m. Feb 26 (register at https://tinyurl.com/KevinColeHFA22623)
- Admission: Free
- Information: (501) 372-6822 | hearnefineart.com