Click Here to View The ACRI Digital Catalogue
In 2017, the Mississippi Museum of Art (Museum) and Tougaloo College (College) joined forces to form the Art and Civil Rights Initiative (ACRI). The ACRI is a multi-layered, multi-year program that included work in Art Practice, Collections Development, Research and Scholarship, an Exhibition Series and Lecture Series, and a paid Internship. The topics, artifacts, and public programs of the ACRI addressed issues of race and racism at the intersection of art and civil rights in Mississippi and far beyond its geographic boundaries.
The ACRI series of five exhibitions included a vast landscape of artistic expression from sculpture to painting to song lyrics. The first, NOW: The Call and Look of Freedom, challenged conventional notions of African American protest. The Art of Engagement: Meditation on a Movement positioned artwork created or acquired by the Museum and the College amid the social turbulence of the modern Civil Rights Movement and the decade immediately following. A Modernist Vision: The Tradition of Modern Art at Tougaloo College highlighted some of the most significant work by modern visual artists from the Tougaloo College Art Collection. A Tale of Two Collections focused on the decades-long relationship between the Museum and the College. Finally, The Prize: Seven Decades of Lyrical Response to the Call for Civil Rights revisited the “call” represented in artistic sketches of the summer of 1964, and the “response” represented in song lyrics ranging from 1956 to 2018.
The digital catalogue commemorates the important work completed through the ACRI via forewords from the Museum and the College, introductory curatorial statements for each exhibition, full-color reproductions of more than eighty works of art, abridged versions of accompanying wall texts, and intern bios.
The ACRI and the publication are underwritten by the Henry Luce Foundation.