SAN FRANCISCO – Rigo 23 is the tag currently used by Portuguese-born muralist Ricardo Gouveia, who came to San Francisco in 1985, as Rigo 85. He earned a BFA in 1991 from the former San Francisco Art Institute, where, in 1990, Carlos Villa taught the school’s first multicultural art history course, “Worlds in Collision”. From 2000 to 2002, Villa’s team taught the class with Rigo 00 (the artist settled on his current tag in 2003).
In 1992, the artist was one of the six founders of the Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), which has collaborated with artists Tauba Auerbach, Emory Douglas, Xylor Jane, Chris Johanson, Mei-Tsung Lee and Barry McGee, and poet Daisy Zamora, among others, to create 900 murals to date. I was struck by this activism, this diversity and this public art because there is little comparable in New York.
This sense of local involvement, which is true for Chicago, Houston and other American cities, goes against the idea of New York as the country’s art center, except in terms of auction houses. auctions and declared sales. Awareness of different history, legacies and common concerns was very much in my mind when I saw the exhibition Rigo 23: February 31 with Angola-3 at Anglim/Trimble (March 3 to April 29, 2023). As the press release states, the exhibit documents “Rigo 23’s 22-year involvement with the three individuals formerly incarcerated in Louisiana State Prison, commonly known as Angola-3.”
He keeps on:
The Angola-3 were subjected to the longest known incarceration in solitary confinement in the world, 114 years in total: Albert Woodfox – 44 years old, Herman Wallace – 41 years old and Robert King – 29 and a half years old. They spent at least 23 hours alone in a 6 x 9 x 12 foot cell each day. In prison, they organized themselves to improve living conditions and prevent sexual assault, becoming the target of reprisals from the prison administration. They co-founded a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party in Angola. After their release, both King and Woodfox wrote books; by Woodfox Lonely was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
What caught my attention was the range of work, from a mural done directly on a gallery wall, to drawings, studies and serigraphs, to photographs and letters in glass cases. . The press release adds:
Rigo 23 is working with Robert King, the sole surviving member of Angola-3, to launch a cultural center in the historic black Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans. It will host the Angola-3 archives and function as a community center […].
From banning books to firing teachers, the attempt to control narratives and suppress factual stories seems to grow stronger every day in the United States. Rigo 23 activism opposes this pursuit of colonialism. The mural “Uncaged Panthers” (2023) depicts three black panthers (rendered to echo the party logo) bursting through prison cell bars. Below this image, Rigo 23 listed the start of Angola 3’s solitary confinement, in 1972, and the exact release dates of Robert King, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. One of the reasons the authorities kept them in solitary confinement was that they were afraid of what they, as members of the Black Panther party, would say to the general prison population. The removal of books from school libraries to protect the common good is a continuation of Angolan prison policy. It honors a complaining parent while censuring the curiosity of many others.
In addition to ‘Uncaged Panthers’, which can be ordered to be recreated at a specific site, the exhibit includes two large ink drawings, ‘Albert Woodfox–Born Dead Struggling to Live (Mug Shot)’ and ‘Albert Woodfox–Born Dead Struggling to Live (Full Body)”, and “The Deeper They Bury Me” silkscreen (all 2023), which depicts the words “The Deeper They Bury Me The Louder My Voice Becomes” on the facade of the New Museum in New York. These related works testify to the artist’s long involvement and friendship with King, Woodfox and Wallace, other political prisoners and prison reform. “The End of Silence Tour” (2003), a poster advertising an event that included Black Panther founder and chairman Bobby Seale, other party members and supporters, was printed from a design included in the ‘exposure. The ink drawing ‘About Distance’ (2023), on ‘elephant dung paper’, quotes something Woodfox said to the artist: ‘Distance only means that love and friendship must travel faster.”
The art of Rigo 23 refuses its status as a commodity. At the heart of his project is an awareness of colonialism, the legacies of racism and state-sanctioned inhumanity. Her work seeks to reveal stories and tell stories that institutions cover up and bury. He wants to empower individuals and communities. This is the kind of exhibition I would like to see more of in New York.
Rigo 23: February 31 with Angola-3 continues at Anglim/Trimble Gallery (1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, CA) through April 29. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
