Paint in Motion and Memory: Jack Whitten’s Sonic Canvases at MoMA

Jack Whitten’s abstract paintings don’t just sit quietly on the wall—they pulse with the restless energy of invention. Born in segregated Alabama, Whitten transformed the turbulence of his era into sweeping gestures and radical techniques, using everything from saws to afro picks to sculpt his canvases. His signature “Slab Paintings” harnessed a homemade squeegee to drag color in waves, capturing the improvisational spirit of jazz and the velocity of social change. For Whitten, abstraction was more than style; it was a way to carve out freedom, sidestepping the constraints of both racism and artistic tradition. Later, he layered paint into thick mosaics, slicing and assembling them into luminous tiles—each piece a tribute to Black icons and a reimagining of belonging. Whitten’s art turns the act of painting into a kind of cosmic mapping, where every mark is both a memory and a possibility. In Whitten’s hands, paint becomes both protest and poetry—always in motion, always searching for new ground. #JackWhitten #AbstractArt #BlackArtists #Culture