Screening and Director Talk: Paint Me a Road Out of Here

A great painting tells a compelling story. When its provenance deepens that story, it becomes an extraordinary and impactful performance piece. Documentarian and activist Catherine Gund tracks the labyrinthine ordeal borne by Faith Ringgold’s 1971 painting “For the Women’s House” — originally created for the women incarcerated on Rikers Island, then relegated to mishandling, defacing, and deep storage. Artist and rapper Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, herself formerly incarcerated and commissioned to create a new work for the Rikers women, bands together with Ringgold, politicians, philanthropists, and corrections officers against Kafkaesque bureaucracy to liberate the original painting from Rikers and, more profoundly, Black women from mass incarceration.

Post-film discussion on Saturday, Nov 22nd with Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter.

Presented in partnership with the Kimball Art Center and their exhibit “Gaze into These Eyes” (Sept 26-Jan 4).