The 24 Hour A Day Life of Benny Andrews, 1974
Produced and Directed by John Wise
We are featuring this documentary which was recently restored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and shared through the museum’s “From the Vaults” program. Filmed in the spring and summer of 1972, the documentary includes interviews with Andrews and captures him at work in his studio, teaching at Queens College, and leading classes in the Manhattan Detention Center as part of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition’s prison arts program.
Benny Andrews Flag Day, 1966
Robyn Farrell, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago discuss and art historian Beth Harris of SmartHistory discuss Benny Andrews’ Flag Day, 1966.
“Another way of reading it … is the way in which the flag is almost actually hiding the figure, or the figure is struggling to emerge from the stripes, which of course could be a metaphor for the ways in which the African American community is constantly fighting for their own rights or visibility, and with Benny Andrews in particular, his interest in African Americans being properly promoted within the art world in America.”
Artist Deborah Roberts Discusses Benny Andrews’ No More Games
The Art Newspaper Podcast
Painter and mixed media artist Deborah Roberts discusses the painting No More Games at the MoMA in New York, and discusses its meaning, materiality, and impact on her own artistic practice.
“…this piece just struck me: I mean, “No More Games” which was just so perfect. It’s just like: He’s had enough. Enough is enough… “
Listen to the Art Newspaper Podcast with Deborah Roberts here
An Interview with Benny Andrews
Produced by Staniski Media, 2003
Benny Andrews in the studio and in conversation with filmmaker Stanley J. Staniski. Andrews discusses his family history, his path from Georgia, to Chicago, to New York, and his development as an artist.
WNYC's Views on Art: Benny Andrews
Interview with Views on Art host Ruth Bowman
May 1, 1973
In 1973, Benny Andrews was a guest on Views on Art, a program on New York's public radio station, WNYC. In this wide-ranging interview, Andrews discusses his recent exhibition of work from his Bicentennial Series, the challenge of making paintings, his work teaching in Queens College, and the arts education program he established in the New York state prison system.
Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power
by Susan E. Cahan
Duke University Press, 2016
Mounting Frustration chronicles African American artists' struggle for inclusion in the museum system and the historical canon during the 1960s and 70s. Cahan offers a detailed account of Benny Andrews' work co-founding the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), protesting exclusionary museum exhibitions, and negotiating for a greater voice for African Americans in New York's art world.
“Up until the sixties, the gallery system would have X number of artists, established artists - like, ten. Those artists very often decided who the one or two young artists would be to come in, like protégés, and then they would be nourished and they would become the next group. And for the average person - average artist - there was no way to enter unless they got, literally, what slaves got: a note from the master to come in. You’d go to a gallery and if you didn’t know some famous artist they’d wonder: Why are you there? . . . The art criticism was just as impossible to deal with. You just sat there like you sat waiting for the morning paper to come . . . And those criticisms were either devastating or they made you; the gallery dealers and curators just looked to what the critics were saying.”
Oral history interview with Benny Andrews
June 30, 1968
Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution
In 1968, Benny Andrews sat down for an interview with curator and fellow co-founder of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC) Henri Ghent. The interview was recorded for the Archives of American Art, which later joined the Smithsonian Institution. Andrews discusses his biography, artwork, and thoughts on race and racism.
Read the complete transcript of the interview here.