What Black Is This, You Say? is a public artwork created by artist and architect Amanda Williams for Storefront’s facade. This year-long project translates to the physical realm a body of work initiated by the artist on Instagram. It will be accompanied by a digital program of visual, written, and live content on this website.

The project began as an informal response to #BlackoutTuesday, a social media protest campaign that invited the public to post black squares to their feeds. This “blackout” of communication on June 2nd, 2020 was intended to be a show of solidarity with Black lives and the calls for justice in response to the murder of George Floyd and many others before him. 

“I’ll be honest. I wasn’t feeling the blackout. I hate stuff like that, but I caved. Wanted to be in solidarity. But color is everything to me. You can’t just say “black”...which one?” –Amanda Williams

Drawing upon her past work exploring color theory, Williams sought to bring attention to the plurality, complexity, and nuance of Black experience(s). Over the following five months, in order to challenge the black square as a monolithic representation, she posted 120+ shades or textures on Instagram – each with a corresponding caption. Together, they provide a rich palette of overlapping and divergent narratives and histories that inform Black identity.

At Storefront, Williams presents a public artwork that more deeply explores twelve of these shades, each one painted on one of the twelve moving panels of the gallery’s facade that serve as hinges between the public realm and the gallery interior. The work constitutes a permanent transformation of Storefront’s facade, which all subsequent exhibitions will navigate and build upon in various ways.

Alongside this public artwork, Storefront will release writings and reflections related to the work in digital format. Together, these discussions interrogate and contextualize commonly held narratives around Black culture, joy, spirituality, suffering, agency, labor, and more.

Check back for digital content and information about upcoming programming.

What Black Is This, You Say? A Public Artwork by Amanda Williams. Graphic design by Polymode. Organized by Storefront for Art and Architecture, 2021.