Out & About: The Westmoreland bids farewell to portrait exhibit

As a Black, gay, immigrant artist living in the Rust Belt, Gavin Benjamin has contemplated themes of isolation, both personal and for the wider communities of which he is part.

The impetus behind his recent exhibit at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, “Break Down and Let It All Out,” was to show people of color and immigrants as “leaders, upstanding family members, community builders, pioneers.”

It also was a vehicle to draw those people into historically white institutions, such as museums, where they might not have felt welcome and wouldn’t have seen themselves reflected in what was contained within.

The exhibit combined an installation depicting a domestic space owned by a fictional Black family with walls wallpapered with portraits of immigrants and people of color from the surrounding community.

“These are the folks this museum has been trying to have a conversation with for many years,” Benjamin said at a May 4 closing reception at the Greensburg museum.

The artist, a native of Guyana now living in Lawrenceville, said he is trying to figure out a way to keep the collection together.

“It would be wonderful if someone would buy it and donate it back to the museum,” he said. “Or maybe it goes to other museums in Pittsburgh, or parts of it go to different places, but it should go someplace where these folks will have access to it.”

Seen at The Westmoreland: Pamela Cooper, Kyle Brooks, Roderick Booker, Evelyn Jones, Brooklynn Jones, Ruth Kirkling, Jim and Suzanne Andrews, Marcy Koynok, Marti Haykin, Liz Rudnick, Donna Scarlett, Kamika Thomas, Triniti Thomas, Jeffrey Jarzynka, Shannon Cerra, Hans Neleman, Sam Badger and members of the museum’s leadership team, Jeremiah William McCarthy, Erica Nuckles and Rhonda Madden.