The Brooklyn Rail

Sequestered moons, silhouettes of stilettos, stamped lips, and perching birds are nothing I would think to group together. Yet they sensibly coexist in Barkley L. Hendricks’s Space is The Place. In this exhibition, Hendricks’s work elicits curiosity and hope for something different, something new. While most of the work on view was created in the 1970s, it feels contemporary. It attempts to work through questions still being asked today. Hendricks’s exploration of celestial bodies is grand and makes way for an exchange on the limitlessness of not only being, but being Black. A sequence of musings on time, place, and experience.

The exhibition is essentially built from two bodies of work that I felt could have been made by two different artists. There are the unmistakable Hendricks paintings, with subjects floating on the surface of opaquely painted canvases, and then there are works on paper that seem to be contending with existential questions. Despite their aesthetic differences, Hendricks’s close attention to detail remains. Titled after Sun Ra’s 1972 film, Space is the Place, Hendricks’s work engages tenets of Afrofuturism throughout the show, both personally and cosmically. Afrofuturism allows Black imagination the room to fantasize with no bounds. In Sun Ra’s film, he settles a new planet solely with African American people with aims of creating a utopia. Similarly, Hendricks’s work grapples with the harsh physical existence of Black people in the US in the past and present while imagining alternatives on and beyond Earth. From the use of self-portraits to recurring pyramids and moons, it feels like Hendricks is contemplating where he fits into a bigger picture.

When portraying the cosmos, the works on paper feel like they are processing a vision. This Guy’s in Love with You (for Hampton Hawes) (1979) and Tiny Pyramids (for Sun Ra) (1979), are both composed of different mediums including graphite, foil seals, ink stamps, and glow sticks, and as a result they contain varying visual elements. As odes to jazz musicians, the influence of the improvisational and nonconforming nature of this historically African American music genre are clear. Hendricks experiments with form through lines, colors, shapes, and shading. In This Guy’s in Love, there is a postage stamp of someone who might be Jesus Christ with open arms, the words “Come unto me” written above him. It is at the center of the work, but it does not feel like the focal point. The yellow script, the fading moons, the partial pyramid, and the repeating lips feel equally poignant. With Tiny Pyramids (for Sun Ra), a new detail appeared each time I looked at the work. First, it was the three tiny cherubs with their bows drawn, then the singular shaded hand reaching from above, the thick graphite line emerging from the bottom left corner, and the miniature pyramids throughout; Hendricks depicts an active scene. Even while dealing with macrocosms, the work remains grounded in humanity. This suggests that Black life and existence should not entirely be confined to experiences on Earth, but also regarded as being cosmic and extraterrestrial.

The figures in the exhibit, painted and photographed, exist between time and space and continue a conversation on belonging. With five self-portraits included, Hendricks is at the center of this dialogue. The untitled painted self-portrait (1981) bears a steel-like chrome background, and a Barkley L. Hendricks clothed in nothing but shin-high striped colorful socks and what I can only describe as cyclops sunglasses with a red frame and one long silver lens. A red cardinal covers his genitalia, while white cardinals rest on his arm, shoulder, and the antlers coming out of his head. This version of Hendricks is from the future. He stands confidently, one hand holding a black chalice garnished with an umbrella and wedges of lemon and lime, the other resting on his hip. Self Portrait (1976), renders Hendricks against a white background with a brown hat a few shades away from the color of his skin. It’s unclear which time period this Hendricks belongs to, if any. Similar to the previous painting, there is a toothpick in Hendricks’s mouth and his eyes are obstructed. Throughout the show, none of the painted figures’ eyes are visible. They aren’t just omitted, they are intentionally hidden behind painted blocks. This choice could act as a symbol for concealed identities or maybe granting anonymity. The only eyes we see are those of Hendricks in the three photographed self-portraits where his gaze is unflinching. The photographs offer the known Hendricks of the present, one not only in the middle of a meditation on the reality he faces, but also one dreaming up something greater. Here, in true Afrofuturist fashion, the present and future are able to exist at the same time and in the same place.