![Frank Bowling's essay "Discussion on Black Art" in a 1969 edition of "Arts Magazine."](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/scaled_281_wide/s3/2023-03/Book1_p16_IG.jpg?itok=vTbE6rYD)
Frank Bowling and 5+1
![Four people stand in a line against a white wall with large tapestries against it. Black-and-white image.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/scaled_562_wide/s3/2023-01/FB_2_5_1_01_16x9_V2.jpg?itok=SljNE0zM)
Left to right: Mary Whitten, Frank Bowling, Jack Whitten, and Al Loving at the opening reception for 鈥5+1,鈥 1969. Photograph by Adger Cowans. 漏 Adger Cowans.
![Four people stand in a line against a white wall with large tapestries against it. Black-and-white image.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/scaled_562_wide/s3/2023-01/FB_2_5_1_01_16x9_V2.jpg?itok=SljNE0zM)
Left to right: Mary Whitten, Frank Bowling, Jack Whitten, and Al Loving at the opening reception for 鈥5+1,鈥 1969. Photograph by Adger Cowans. 漏 Adger Cowans.
In late 1969, while living in New York City, Frank Bowling organized 鈥5+1,鈥 an exhibition held in a classroom space at Stony Brook University, New York, with support from the university鈥檚 recently established Black Studies program. 鈥5+1鈥 presented work by five African American artists with whom Bowling shared an interest in the possibilities of abstraction鈥擬elvin Edwards, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, and William T. Williams鈥攖ogether with work by the British Guiana鈥揵orn Bowling himself, the exhibition鈥檚 鈥減lus-one.鈥
鈥5+1鈥 created space for its six artists to show their work together outside of New York City鈥檚 white-dominant art world. Despite raising questions around representation, agency, and discriminatory institutional structures that still resonate today, the exhibition remains underrecognized, with few archival materials available for further research.
Bowling was intentional about organizing 鈥5+1鈥 in a university context. Inspired by his approach, the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播 Boston has undertaken a two-year partnership with undergraduate students at UMass Boston and advanced PhD researchers at Stony Brook University to explore the significance of 鈥5+1鈥濃攂oth in 1969 and today. This project documents research, archival materials, artist interviews, and reflections generated through the three-way partnership, including and satellite exhibitions on view at UMass Boston and Stony Brook University, respectively, in 2022 and early 2023. Countering archival absence, the materials here invite further conversation.
鈥淔rank Bowling and 5+1鈥 is presented in conjunction with 鈥淔rank Bowling鈥檚 Americas,鈥 which was on view at the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播 from October 22, 2022, through April 9, 2023.
Image Gallery
These images tell the story of Frank Bowling鈥檚 early career in the United States and the genesis of the groundbreaking 鈥5+1鈥 exhibition.
![Frank Bowling's essay "Discussion on Black Art" in a 1969 edition of "Arts Magazine."](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-03/Book1_p16_IG.jpg?itok=Hezsot4M)
April 1969, vol. 43, no. 6, p. 16.
Frank Bowling, 鈥淒iscussion on Black Art,鈥 Arts Magazine, 1969
In early 1969, Bowling began writing on Black art for Arts Magazine. He contributed there and to other publications through 1971. His essays articulated an intense suspicion about Black art as a separate and readily definable category of art, believing the Black experience to be too subtle and complex to monolithically categorize and interpret.
In a three-part essay published between 1969 and 1970 in Arts Magazine, Bowling reflected on wider issues in Black art, lending a vocabulary to art criticism that he felt was missing: 鈥淲hat distinguishes or creates the uniqueness of the black artist is not only the color of his skin, but the experience he brings to his art that forge, inform, and feed it and link him essentially to the rest of the black people.鈥
![Frank Bowling at the opening of Afro-American Artists in 1970.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/M42_B026_F01_Exhibitions_澳门六合彩开奖现场直播_MNCAA_002_front_IG%20%281%29.jpg?itok=FOV_3AQu)
Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists records (M042). Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, Boston, Massachusetts. Box 26, Folder 1.
Frank Bowling at the opening of 鈥淎fro-American Artists: New York and Boston,鈥 1970
鈥淎fro-American Artists: New York and Boston,鈥 held at the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播 in 1970 and curated by Edmund Barry Gaither, presented recent work by 70 Black artists. Gaither was director and curator of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA), and special consultant at the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播 from 1969 to 2020.
Bowling was deeply skeptical about group exhibitions based on racial identity, like 鈥淎fro-American Artists.鈥 He thought these exhibitions were tokenistic and 鈥済uilty of that hidden but quite positive decline of standards,鈥 as he put it.
![A promotional poster for 鈥淎fro-American Artists: New York and Boston."](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/M042_B026_F001_AfroAmericanArtists_1_IG.jpg?itok=9CO6yf0O)
Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists records (M042). Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, Boston, Massachusetts. Box 26, Folder 1.
Promotional poster for 鈥淎fro-American Artists: New York and Boston,鈥 1970
Bowling contributed the painting Mel Edwards Decides (1969) to 鈥淎fro-American Artists: New York and Boston.鈥 The work鈥檚 title references the decision by Melvin Edwards鈥攚ho exhibited his art alongside Bowling鈥檚 in 鈥5+1鈥濃攖o decline participating in the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播鈥檚 exhibition.
![Frank Bowling and others at the opening of "Some American History" at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/EX073_SAH_Opening_016_IG.jpg?itok=2iS8JQ1E)
Courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston.
Left to right: Frank Bowling, Peter Bradley, and Larry Rivers at the opening of 鈥淪ome American History,鈥 1971
In 1971, Bowling participated in 鈥淪ome American History,鈥 an exhibition held in Houston, Texas, which explored the Black experience in American life from enslavement to the present.
![An abstract painting of bright oranges, yellows, pinks, and greens with different, repeating images.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-01/SC440723_IG.jpg?itok=YMhprsyd)
Synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen ink, spray paint, wax crayon, and graphite on canvas. Menil Collection, Houston. Image by Adam Neese. 漏 Frank Bowling. All rights reserved, DACS, London & ARS, New York 2022.
Frank Bowling, Middle Passage, 1970
When Larry Rivers, a white artist, curated 鈥淪ome American History,鈥 he invited Bowling to contribute a work that addressed his 鈥淪outh American鈥揥est Indian background.鈥
Bowling responded with a densely layered composition combining washes of bright paint, screen-printed photographs, stenciled maps and letters, and other visual elements. Among the figures and places in the photographs are the artist鈥檚 sons, his mother, and his mother鈥檚 store. Stenciled and painted over, these images slide into illegibility. 鈥淚 named the painting Middle Passage because I am a product of the middle passage,鈥 Bowling stated in the exhibition鈥檚 catalogue. 鈥淏ut鈥 do not bring my images together because of the history and brutality of that terrible crossing, but rather in spite of it.鈥
![An installation shot of the Some American History exhibition in 1971, featuring Frank Bowling's "Middle Passage."](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/EX73_Some_American_History_6_IG.jpg?itok=MF_na6kp)
Courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston.
Installation view of 鈥淪ome American History,鈥 with Frank Bowling鈥檚 Middle Passage (1970) pictured at right, 1971
Alongside Bowling, two other 鈥5+1鈥 artists, William T. Williams and Daniel LaRue Johnson, had work included in 鈥淪ome American History.鈥 Williams鈥檚 work, George Washington Carver Crossing the Dupont River, May 17, 1954 (1970), pictured here at far left, uses for its base a linoleum panel the artist originally made for 鈥5+1.鈥 Rivers commissioned the new work specifically for 鈥淪ome American History,鈥 and it currently resides in the Menil Collection.
![Cover of the "5+1" catalogue.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/5%2B1_exhibitioncataloguecoverPhoto_AnnaArca_IG.jpg?itok=Prx8Td2f)
鈥5+1鈥 exhibition catalogue, 1969
When Bowling arrived in New York in 1966, there was increasing debate around the concept of Black art. In 1969, he organized 鈥5+1鈥 at Stony Brook University. The exhibition presented work by five African American artists with whom he shared an interest in abstraction鈥撯揗elvin Edwards, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, and William T. Williams鈥撯揳longside Bowling鈥檚 own work. Intending to give a platform to art being denied visibility, the artist also sought to create space for inquiry outside of a museum setting.
![A cord travels across a floor and ends in a coiled circle.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/FB_2_4_4_d_IG.jpg?itok=ZnVBBpt0)
Photograph by Tina Tranter. 漏 Estate of Tina Tranter. Courtesy Frank Bowling Archive.
Installation view of 鈥5+1,鈥 1969
In October 1969, 鈥5+1鈥 opened in a classroom space at Stony Brook University. Organized by Bowling at university professor Lawrence Alloway鈥檚 invitation, the exhibition presented abstract works by Melvin Edwards, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams, and Bowling himself.
![The "5+1" gallery space is split by a barbed wire curtain.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/FB_2_4_4_a_IG.jpg?itok=N7pQe7rN)
Photograph by Tina Tranter. 漏 Estate of Tina Tranter. Courtesy Frank Bowling Archive.
Installation view of 鈥5+1,鈥 1969
Following 鈥淴 to the Fourth Power,鈥 a four-person exhibition coordinated by William T. Williams at the Studio Museum in Harlem earlier in 1969, 鈥5+1鈥 was a counterproposal to large group exhibitions that showcased artists鈥 work based on perceived racial identity.
鈥淚 felt that there was something that I could do about what appeared to be this overwhelming indifference to what Black artists were doing in this area,鈥 Bowling later commented.
![A cord crosses the floor of the "5+1" gallery and ends in a coil.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/FB_2_4_4_b_IG.jpg?itok=2rT4tgh3)
Photograph by Tina Tranter. 漏 Estate of Tina Tranter. Courtesy Frank Bowling Archive.
Installation view of 鈥5+1,鈥 1969
Bowling befriended several Downtown New York City鈥揵ased African American artists, some of whom would become coexhibitors in 鈥5+1.鈥 Bowling regularly wrote art criticism, sometimes focusing on the work of these artists and the ways they rewrote and advanced modernist tradition.
Reflecting on 鈥5+1鈥 in an article for Arts Magazine that followed his earlier three-part essay on issues in the museum presentation and critical reception of Black art in the United States, and which as written apropos of the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播鈥檚 presentation of 鈥淎fro-American Artists: New York and Boston,鈥 Bowling wrote that 鈥溾5+1鈥 had the avowed intention to once and for all put a stop to all those rotten ethnic shows.鈥
![Mary Whitten, Frank Bowling, Jack Whitten, and Al Loving at the opening reception for 鈥5+1."](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/FB_2_5_1_01_IG.jpg?itok=Fi_sONQU)
Photograph by Adger Cowans. 漏 Adger Cowans. Courtesy Frank Bowling Archive.
Left to right: Mary Whitten, Frank Bowling, Jack Whitten, and Al Loving at the opening reception for 鈥5+1,鈥 1969
This photograph documents a joyful handshake between artists Frank Bowling and Jack Whitten at the opening celebration for 鈥5+1.鈥 Mary Whitten stands to the left of Bowling, and Al Loving stands to Whitten鈥檚 right alongside one unidentified attendee. Two large panels of patterned linoleum by William T. Williams hang on the classroom-turned-gallery wall behind them. 鈥淭hese artists were set against what was expected of them,鈥 Bowling later remarked of Williams鈥檚 contribution. Strewn across the floor, a work by Melvin Edwards鈥攁 slack length of industrial link chain鈥攅ncircles the group, drawing them closer together.
![Three men stand in the 5+1 gallery space.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/11_5%2B1-PhotographsbyAdgerCowans_IG.jpg?itok=8EzQ7wlg)
Photograph by Adger Cowans. 漏 Adger Cowans. Courtesy Frank Bowling Archive.
Opening reception for 鈥5+1,鈥 1969
Adger Cowans, a fellow artist, photographer, and close friend of the artists who participated in 鈥5+1,鈥 took this photograph, capturing the grinning group next to a delicate filter of barbed wire strands鈥攖he deceptively delicate threads of Edwards鈥檚 Curtain (for William and Peter) (1969).
![An aerial of Stony Brook campus, 1970.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/70bspecula_035_IG.jpg?itok=t1Heh6cR)
Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Aerial view of Stony Brook University campus, 1970
Originally published in Specula, the 1970 Stony Brook yearbook, this black-and-white photograph shows an aerial view of the university鈥檚 rapidly expanding campus on Long Island just eight years after its groundbreaking. In its first decade, the campus (colloquially referred to as Mudville) was under constant construction, with new buildings and roads replacing the trees of a once rural Suffolk County. The humanities building, which housed the Department of Art, the newly launched Black Studies program, and the classrooms where 鈥5+1鈥 was on view can be spotted in the top right corner of the image鈥攁n appropriately H-shaped structure.
![A calendar cut out from the Stony Brook Statesman from the weekend of October 31st-November 2nd, 1969.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/11_Introduction_0153M004_IG.jpg?itok=t1xprXlR)
Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Stony Brook Statesman exhibition calendar announcement, October 1969
This calendar clipping includes an announcement of 鈥5+1鈥 taking place in the 鈥淯niversity Gallery鈥 in Stony Brook鈥檚 humanities building 鈥渢hrough November 8.鈥 The gallery that held the exhibition was in fact two classrooms connected by a retractable wall. As a single space, they hosted an exhibition program launched by Department of Art professor Lawrence Alloway in an effort to bring artists to campus. Reflecting on the exhibition decades later, Bowling noted the deliberate decision to base 鈥5+1鈥 in a university context, expressing a specific interest in exhibiting work for a student audience.
![A Black Studies course advertisement from the Fall 1969 edition of the Stony Brook Statesman.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/3_Course_Listing_IG%20%281%29.jpg?itok=m9vzusoU)
Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Black Studies course advertisement in the Stony Brook Statesman, Fall 1969
In the fall semester of 1969, the first courses were taking place in the newly formed Black Studies program at Stony Brook. This course advertisement from the student newspaper, the Stony Brook Statesman, lists three of the first courses offered to undergraduate students. The Black Studies program was the result of a number of actions led by the Black Students Union in 1968 and 1969, calling for the creation of a 鈥淏lack Institute鈥 that would center the experiences of Black students on campus. These actions were part of a larger Black students movement sweeping the nation in the late 1960s and early 鈥70s. At Douglass College in New Jersey, Frank Bowling, who was on the arts faculty, was part of similar efforts to create an African American studies program.
![Cover from a Stony Brook Black Studies Program.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/6_BlackStudiesTrifold2022_08_29_155446_IG.jpg?itok=VKSxBHwF)
Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Brochure cover for Stony Brook University鈥檚 Black Studies program, undated
This 1970s trifold mail brochure was sent to prospective Stony Brook students, advertising the university鈥檚 new Black Studies program. An 鈥淎cademic Philosophy鈥 shared inside describes the program as 鈥渄esigned to provide an introductory and systematic understanding of Africa and peoples of African ancestry with the hope of expanding the students鈥 academic and intellectual horizons.鈥 On the cover, the department slogan 鈥減ower through knowledge鈥 nods to both the Latin aphorism scientia potentia est (knowledge is power) and the birth of Black Studies programs as created by a dedicated, student-led faction of the Black Power movement.
![A painting of bright green, yellow, and red vertical stripes with a faint outline of South America in the middle.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/SC440359_IG.jpg?itok=3EnyIeK-)
Acrylic on canvas. Tate: Presented by Rachel Scott 2006. 漏 Frank Bowling. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage, London & ARS, New York 2022.
Frank Bowling, Who鈥檚 Afraid of Barney Newman, 1968
The title of this work refers to American abstract artist Barnett Newman (1905鈥1970) and his series of paintings Who鈥檚 Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue (1966鈥70). Bowling鈥檚 painting borrows from Newman鈥檚 canvases, which are divided into bands of primary color, implicitly challenging Newman鈥檚 (and other American artists鈥) authority over abstract painting. Into fields of lush color, Bowling introduces coded references to his own biography: outlines of South America and of his mother鈥檚 house in New Amsterdam, Guyana, hover over the painting鈥檚 central column. The substitution of Newman鈥檚 primaries for red, yellow, and green鈥攗sed for tricolor flags in many African and Caribbean nations that gained newfound independence at the time, including Guyana in 1966鈥攁dds to the painting鈥檚 air of rebuttal.
![An abstract painting in the colors of black, red, green, yellow, and blue, with imagery of the continents of South America and Africa.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2022-08/SC440355_IG.jpg?itok=hSSbjtRI)
Acrylic on canvas. Lent by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Maddy and Larry Mohr, 2011. 漏 Frank Bowling. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage, London & ARS, New York 2022.
Frank Bowling, Night Journey, 1969鈥70
In this map painting with a distinctive, brooding palette, South America and Africa appear in geographic relation to one another while continents of the northern hemisphere are out of sight. A bolt of yellow fills the gap between the two visible land masses. Nearly splitting the canvas, its forceful downward thrust can be understood as marking the Middle Passage, the forced sea voyage endured by enslaved peoples taken from West Africa to the Americas, and the journey of the painting鈥檚 title.
![A photo of Frank Bowling standing with his hands in his pockets.](https://d1nn9x4fgzyvn4.cloudfront.net/styles/575x575_uncropped/s3/2023-02/05_5%2B1_Artistsin1969_Bowling_Portrait_2_IG.jpg?itok=Clb0DVbM)
Photograph by Adger Cowans. 漏 Adger Cowans.
Portrait photograph of Frank Bowling, 1980s
Adger Cowans, who photographed the opening reception of 鈥5+1,鈥 is a close friend of Bowling鈥檚 and the other 鈥5+1鈥 artists. He took this portrait of Bowling in the 1980s.