The Brooklyn Rail

In 1971, the late Black artist and activist Faith Ringgold visited the notorious correctional institution, Rikers Island, in New York City. Slated to close in 2027, a majority of those incarcerated at Rikers are in pretrial detention simply because they cannot afford bail. A visceral montage of incarcerated people carries the narrative of Catherine Gund’s Paint Me a Road Out of Here (2024), which lays bare the gruesome reality of life on the island. At Rikers, Ringgold asked women what kind of mural would inspire them. One woman said: “I wanna see a road leading out of here.” Ringgold went on to paint For The Women’s House (1971), depicting women working in non-traditional careers: a president, a construction worker, a professional basketball player, a minister, and others. The mural served as a visual affirmation of what women are capable of when supported and given the requisite conditions to thrive.

A poignant protest against mass incarceration, the documentary follows the intergenerational life stories of two artists at the forefront of radical social change: interdisciplinary artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter and Ringgold. With some two million people currently incarcerated in the United States, the film foregrounds the urgency with which the prison industrial complex causes harm and, consequently, the pressing demand for decarceration. The film sutures personal interviews with the two artists, archival news footage of incarcerated women over the decades, and commentary from specialists such as curators Nicole Fleetwood, Rujeko Hockley, and cultural critic Michele Wallace, among others.

Situated at the film’s core is the fifty-year journey of the mural, For The Women’s House, which faced neglect under the custodianship of Rikers and, as a result, was transferred to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The documentary uncovers the mural’s saga, into which it weaves the story of Ringgold and Baxter, whose artistic practices overlap in their drive to imagine liberation for incarcerated women and social justice beyond the confines of incarceration. “Art is disruptive,” curator Nicole Fleetwood aptly reflects in an interview. By exploring different periods from the 1960s to the present, we learn about how Ringgold and Baxter fit into a lineage of radical art practice.

The film navigates the trail-blazing nature of Ringgold’s career and how Baxter, the younger artist, followed in Ringgold’s footsteps as a practitioner of Black radical art. In the 1960s, early in Ringgold’s career, the art world was awash with abstract art despite the political movements that saturated the era. Unlike the artwork of her contemporaries, Ringgold was inspired by American people’s stories. “All my art comes from inspiration,” Ringgold shares. Ringgold’s art is characterized by meditations on the impact of race and power on American society, thereby foregrounding a critical lens of the American experience—in her words: “confrontational, up-in-your-face type of art.” With her vast range of socially charged themes, Ringgold’s artistic practice intersects with the Black Arts, feminist, and Black Power movements. Ringgold has produced some of the most iconic pieces of the twentieth century, such as her “American People” series, featured prominently in the film. Like the mural, Ringgold’s political imagination and ability to hold a mirror to American society constitutes her signature style. Also known for her textile making, Ringgold’s craft leads us out of the “now” to a future where liberation is possible.

We are introduced to Baxter as a teaching artist facilitating art-making at the Riverside Correctional Facility in Philadelphia in 2022 where she was incarcerated during the ninth month of her pregnancy and, consequently, endured a C-section while shackled to a hospital bed. Through the narration of her compassionate voice, we get a glimpse of how her art-making is directly connected to crafting a liberatory space for incarcerated women. The film captures the intimate and personal struggle of Baxter’s journey as an artist and system-impacted individual from childhood to her first solo show at the Brooklyn Museum. By showcasing Baxter’s art alongside Ringgold, the film dynamically invokes how contemporary artists have historically attempted to address systemic injustices Black people face in society and how art making contributes to the world-building capacities of radical art practice.

The intersection of tenderness and art-making is a theme that resonates strongly throughout the film. In one instance, the documentary shows a visit to Baxter’s studio. There, she is shown working on a critical response to American painter and photographer Thomas Eakins who made sexually explicit photographs of an unnamed Black girl. Entitled Consecration to Mary (2021), Baxter reframes the nude image of the child by covering her with a blanket in one photograph and another by inserting herself in the image resembling a protective embrace. When this work debuts later on in the film in her solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, we see how Baxter protects the “sanctity of Black girlhood” by closing the photographs by Eakins where the child’s body is exposed, which are then flanked by images of Baxter’s intervention.

Other moments of tenderness occur when Ringgold and Baxter meet at the Brooklyn Museum for the first time followed by a visit to Ringgold’s home. Their exchanges are filled with gratitude, warmth, and humor. The film reminds us that Baxter and Ringgold belong to a lineage of disruptive art-making which envisions another liberatory reality. “Did you all get anything to eat?” Ringgold asks Baxter as they conclude their exchange on her porch.

Director Catherine Gund is a queer documentary filmmaker and activist who co-founded Aubin Pictures with scholar and activist Scot Nakagawa in 1996. The pair founded Aubin Pictures to “make films that catalyze social change.” Gund started out in the 1980s, during which she directed short films with Paper Tiger Television and co-founded DIVA TV, a documenting affinity group within ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). Gund flexes her distinctive approach to social justice storytelling by visualizing rich portraits of social justice oriented artists Baxter and Ringgold. The film reads as a visual poem for the incarcerated and reminds us of the power of art to imagine a world beyond mass incarceration. “This was freedom for women,” Ringgold reflects on For The Women’s House, “that’s what I painted.”