This is not a paywall You can keep reading for free! At Hyperallergic , we strive to make art more inclusive, so you’ll never hit a paywall when reading our articles. But, as an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to keep our high-quality coverage free and accessible. Please consider joining us as a member to support independent journalism.
Already a member? Sign in here. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider supporting us as a member.
Join Us In the years after Emancipation, a new sound emerged among formerly enslaved African-American communities working on cotton plantations in the Deep South. An amalgamation of field hollers, church hymns, and genres popular among White communities like ragtime and folk, the melancholic music eventually became known simply as the blues, and served as a critical form of self-expression for Black Americans struggling under racial oppression and economic hardship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. New York artist Teri Gandy-Richardson told Hyperallergic that she wanted to commemorate the history of the blues by addressing its connections to slavery.
Her sculptural works “Squeeze” (2008), “Stir (Seven Years)” (2009-2020), and “My Grandmother’s Crown” (2018), now on view at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL) in Queens, all feature repurposed scraps of denim — a heavy-duty fabric historically dyed with indigo e.