Howardena Pindell on art as protest, politics, and the power of DNA ancestry
American artist Howardena Pindell reflects on an art career filled with socio-political bite and aesthetic mastery, ahead of ‘A New Language’, her newly opened show at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

Howardena Pindell’s practice holds within it protest, politics and abstraction. Addressing race, slavery, women’s rights, feminism and segregation in the United States, her work packs a punch. Her take is calm yet unstinting and tackles the raw end of these issues with a piercing intellectual bite and aesthetic mastery.
Born in 1943, Pindell was involved in a car accident in 1979, the same year she left her post as a curator at MoMA New York. It was a few months later that she recorded the seminal video work, Free, White and 21 (1980), which saw a shift towards the political in her work, although she has always maintained a painting practice in tandem with this.
Howardena Pindell, Rope/Fire/Water, 2020.
‘A New Language’ at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, on tour from Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, is a snapshot of a long practice encompassing film, painting and works on paper.
Although her work can appear disparate at first glance – using new media, lace-making, painting and drawing – elements of resistance persist, often through circle motifs, taken from the circle that marked segregated objects in the American South when she was a child. These elements are present throughout her abstract works and notably in the unflinching film Rope/Fire/Water (2020) about police violence and lynching. Even in her most decorative and delicate works, these messages are communicated loud and clear, whether that be through text or materials and colour.
Howardena Pindell, Free, White and 21, 1980.
Wallpaper*: The title of the show is ‘A New Language’. Why did you feel you needed a new language and how did you come to it?
Howardena Pindell: First of all, the new language would be inclusive, both verbal and visual. One of the things that helps us to have a new language is the expansion of the world wide web, although many people in poor countries don't have access.
One thing I think is important is to explore how different cultures name things and read colours. Various cultures have their own visual and verbal languages, which are also influenced by other cultures, which can create a hybrid.
I think the biggest thing of all that's happened in terms of a new language is that people can now access their DNA. I have Zulu DNA, South African, South Indian, Nigerian, Ethiopian, Portuguese, Finnish, Scandinavian, Basque Spanish, Native American, Inuit, German, Irish, Greek, Sicilian, Cypriot and Bahamian. I'm sure a lot of this DNA came about because of enslavement, because there was so much rape of enslaved women during the African slave trade.
W*: So, you have been mapping your personal history through your DNA?
HP: I just think it's fascinating. I mean, that changes the language that all of us have when we think of all our different ancestors, and it's complex for everyone. It's not just enslavement, there’s been so much movement of different cultures, some of them nomadic.
Howardena Pindell, Text, 1975 Ink on paper collage.
W*: You are an artist of many mediums and a political artist. Where does your visual language meet your politics? How do they intersect?
HP: I was born during segregation, and I was in college during the Civil Rights Movement. I picketed in Woolworth, Philadelphia, because of their segregated lunch counters in the South.
It was after the head injury as a passenger in a car accident, where I realised I could have died, that I started doing my issue-related work. I felt that if I didn't express myself, I may be gone, so I would rather say what I wanted to say on canvas.
There are two recent paintings which are about 9ft by 9ft, one is called Four Little Girls, and it was about the four children who were preparing for Sunday school in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. Members of the Klan bombed the church and killed all the little girls, it was a Black church during segregation.
In my issue-related work, I use text and installation and of course, the large format, the issue-related paintings also require research, and I think the influence would have been my mother who was a historian. Now, there are more publications available to use for research on many issue-related topics.
Howardena Pindell, Separate but Equal Genocide: AIDS, 1991–1992. Private collection, Aspen, CO
W*: Your practice takes the literal, abstract forms and issue-related art and brings them together in one visual language. How did you come to make art in this way?
HP: Well, I loved to play when I was a child and I think just because my father was a science person, I was given a small microscope instead of a doll. I can remember my pink bunny, so I remember my little pink bunny rabbit and a microscope.
When I was a child, I used the microscope to look at the drinking water in Philadelphia and it was teeming with life; later I looked at New York water and there was nothing. A couple of months ago, I bought a professional microscope to look at nature close-up, water, leaves, and anything to get ideas for forms.
I’m happy making art and I like experimenting with new materials; I'm happiest making art and trying new things. In my past shows, and in my writing, sometimes.
Sometimes the past shows up again in my work. I've started to do spray paintings again.
My art dealer, who's amazing, has got me a large studio and now I’m able to recreate or create new spray paintings. I love making handmade paper pieces and I've been working with Dieu Donné, an artists’ paper-making organisation
Howardena Pindell, Columbus, 2020 Mixed media on canvas.
INFORMATION
Howardena Pindell, ’A New Language’, until 30 October 2022, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. kettlesyard.co.uk (opens in new tab)
-
Buckhorn Sculpture Park: inside the art paradise dreamt up by collectors Sherry and Joel Mallin
As legendary art collectors Sherry and Joel Mallin prepare to sell their upstate New York home – and the star-studded collection occupying Buckhorn, its onsite sculpture park – we go behind the scenes of this art treasure trove, and the extraordinary life, work and spirit of the Mallins
By MZ Adnan • Published
-
Extreme Cashmere brings its colourful knits to the slopes of St Moritz
Amsterdam-based brand Extreme Cashmere – known for its extensive all-cashmere wardrobe – arrives in the historic Swiss ski resort with a special pop-up and restaurant takeover
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Silver from X-rays recycled as sustainable jewellery by The Royal Mint
The 886 by The Royal Mint jewellery collection gives recycled X-ray films a new purpose
By Hannah Silver • Published
-
New York art exhibitions: what to see this winter
Stay up-to-date with our ongoing guide to the best new and upcoming New York art exhibitions and events for your diary
By Tilly Macalister-Smith • Published
-
Lucy McRae on gene editing, human intimacy, and tangible science fiction
We explore the universe of sci-fi artist and ‘body architect’ Lucy McRae, whose science fiction works fuse human intimacy, biological perfection and speculative, yet eerily familiar futures
By Billie Muraben • Last updated
-
Los Angeles exhibitions: an ongoing guide to the best shows in town
Read our ongoing picks of the best new and upcoming LA art exhibitions to see under the California sun
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Last updated
-
In the studio with Swedish sculptor Klara Kristalova
Kristalova speaks to art historian and broadcaster Flora Vesterberg about ceramics, her Stockholm archipelago studio, and upcoming show at Perrotin New York
By Flora Vesterberg • Last updated
-
Objects of desire: the seductive exchange between fine art and advertising photography
At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) ‘Objects of Desire: Photography and the Language of Advertising’ explores how contemporary artists have imitated, appropriated and exploited the language of commercial photography
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Last updated
-
Leading female artists to celebrate 250 years of Veuve Clicquot in LA show
Opening on 26 October in Los Angeles, a new Veuve Clicquot exhibition will see contemporary female artists – including Yayoi Kusama, Sheila Hicks and Tacita Dean – respond to the champagne house’s free-spirited history
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Last updated
-
Dream weaving: Jeffrey Gibson fuses traditional folklore with contemporary art
By Brook Mason • Last updated
-
Maxim Zhestkov’s hypnotic digital art makes virtual worlds tangible
Ahead of a major installation at London’s W1 Curates, digital artist Maxim Zhestkov discusses the creative potential in merging physical and virtual realities: ‘my work is about this thin membrane that separates us from the future’
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Last updated