“I Am A Man: The Rehumanization of Black Men,” the six-artist exhibit currently featured in Madison Public Library’s Goodman South Madison branch, was born out of a visit to a different exhibit.
Last year, Madison-based portrait artist Sharon Bjyrd visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn. Moving through the immersive space, she was transported back to 1968 to the very moment that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
“You could hear gunshots,” Bjyrd said. “You could see where the shooter was at and where the firehouse was, where the FBI were staking out.”
This visit awakened something in Bjyrd, but in that moment, she didn’t know what action to take.
“At the time, I didn’t have an inkling of doing a show or anything,” she recounted. “[But] when I came back, I really felt like I had to do something with this.”
When The Bubbler at Madison Public Library put out a call for artists and curators, Bjyrd decided to throw her hat in the ring. “I got some of the local artists who I admire the most [and] they said ‘yes.’ So it all came together.”
“I Am A Man” features six Black visual artists—including Shandra Bjyrd, Jerry Jordan, DaRen Morris, Alice Y. Traore, and The Artist—whose work ranges from portraits to clay works, to large-scale acrylic paintings. The exhibit additionally features memorabilia from the play “Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf” by Charles Payne.
Borrowing its name from a 1968 worker’s strike slogan, the works in “I Am A Man” examine the ways in which Black men are presently vilified in the United States, from racist stereotypes in the media to the threats they’re perceived to pose to police and society at large.
Filled with bright colors and softness, other pieces push back against these limiting ideas by honoring the complexity of the Black male experience: that which is filled with music, love, and community.
“From the exhibit at the Civil Rights Museum through the Black Lives Matter Movement, we’ve been consistently shown that our lives don’t have value,” Bjyrd said.
She defines rehumanization as “giving everyone a chance to be seen as a full, human person” outside of our own personal biases and preconceived notions. “I started the show out with the definition of man, because that’s the basics of what we’re talking about,” she explained.
“A man is a male human being. And a lot of times I feel like we lose that when we talk about Black men,” Bjyrd continued. “We don’t [see them] as full human beings.”
Gender plays a significant element in the exhibit, and garners a particular call to action for its Black female viewers.
“Black women, right now, we’re in a space where we’re winning, we’re going to college and getting degrees, and our median incomes are rising,” Bjyrd explained. “At the same time, the family is fractured. I feel like it’s up to us to put that hand out and pull [Black men] up with us.”
“I Am A Man” was one of eight exhibits from a pool of 65 applicants selected by The Bubbler to be shown across Madison neighborhood libraries in 2024 this year.
“The story that Sharon told of her experience of visiting the museum and then wanting to do something, to tell that story in the community was pretty big,” Trent Miller, The Bubbler’s Head Bubblerarian, said.
And while Bjyrd had never curated an art exhibit before, this in no way detracted from The Bubbler’s belief in her ability to put together a successful show.
“Something we pride ourselves on at the Bubbler is working with people who have big ideas but might need some support,” Miller explained.
Throughout the process of setting the exhibit up, Bjyrd shared that she felt as though The Bubbler team “wanted the best for the show.”
“Just watching them and seeing how they took ideas and helped to make them manifest was an awesome and amazing experience,” she added.
Hosting the exhibit at Madison Public Library’s Goodman South branch was also a deliberate choice in an effort to increase its accessibility to the city’s communities of color.
“Libraries are one of the only places left in the community that are honestly for everyone, for all needs, and are very trusted in the community,” Miller explained.
“I think one of the interesting things about doing a show in a public library is it’s not a contemporary art museum,” he continued. “It is an active space where the community is in and out of the space.”
“I Am A Man” will be available for viewing at Goodman South through Friday, Feb. 28.
Three activations will be hosted as part of the exhibit, where artists will be present to talk about the work. Attendees will also have opportunities to watch live scenes from “Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf,” participate in letterpress printing, and more. They will be held on:
- Thursday, Dec. 5 at Goodman South Madison Library from 6-7:30 p.m.
- Saturday, Jan. 18 at Goodman South Madison Library from 1-4 p.m.
- Thursday, Feb. 20 at Goodman South Madison Library from 6-7:30 p.m.
