Installation view. A brown couch sits in a white-walled living room, on the back wall hangs three framed photographs. Image courtesy of 6018North.

Review of RAISIN at 6018North 


By Susan J. Musich
Sixty Inches from Center
November 29, 2021


Excerpt

If you read A Raisin in the Sun in high school and were asked what the play is about, you would likely reply “the experience of a Black family moving into a white neighborhood.” While Lorraine Hansberry’s play specifically depicts the Youngers, a Black family in Chicago, RAISIN, currently on view at 6018North, uses the play’s broader themes as the basis for an ambitious exhibition featuring more than 30 local and international artists working in a wide range of media.

In a conversation about the show curator Asha Iman Veal explained that several years ago she came across archival images of productions of the play in Eastern and Central Europe from the 1960s, which led to further research. She found that soon after its Broadway debut in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was adapted to other local contexts worldwide—by the 1960s it had been translated into 30 languages. The idea for the exhibition came from her research process. She says her approach to RAISIN mirrors what happened with the stage play—the geographic and racial scope traveled far and quickly. Her decision to present an inclusive group of artists and artworks reflects “the legacy of what the play is itself, it’s a very specific story that’s universal in uniting people.”


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