THE Brooklyn Museum will celebrate the work and life of the borough’s most celebrated filmmaker, Spike Lee, in a sprawling exhibit opening this fall. It will bring together more than 300 items related to Lee’s films, artifacts from his personal collection, and complementary modern and contemporary art, including pieces by Kehinde Wiley, James Van Der Zee, Elizabeth Catlett, and Deborah Roberts.
Lee has become indelibly linked to Brooklyn since the 1980s, when he began making films and music videos set in the borough that intertwined youth culture, sports, politics, music and protest movements. in films that are funny, endearing, often controversial and full of style. . While his filmmaking has since taken him to places far and wide, from Manhattan to Chicago to New Orleans to Vietnam, he remains forever associated with Brooklyn. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks (named after the broken promise made by US authorities to former slaves after the American Civil War), is still based in the Fort Greene neighborhood and the Bedford-Stuyvesant block. where he toured a lot. of what is perhaps still his most famous film renamed “Do the Right Thing Way” in his honor in 2015.
Spike Lee: Creative Sources (October 6, 2023-February 4, 2024) was curated by Kimberli Gant and Indira A. Abiskaroon, Curator and Museum Assistant for Modern and Contemporary Art, respectively. In addition to works from the museum’s collection, it will feature many items belonging to Lee, some of which were recently displayed in Los Angeles at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in the exhibit. Director Inspiration: Spike Lee. The Brooklyn Museum exhibit will be organized into seven sections focusing on black history and culture, Brooklyn, sports, music, film history, family and politics.
The exhibit “provides a new perspective on a cultural icon, focusing on the individuals and influences that have shaped Spike Lee’s body of work,” Gant said in a statement. “By making Lee’s collection accessible to the public, this showcase celebrates his legacy while honoring his deep connection to Brooklyn, a place that is integral to his storytelling.”
In addition to favorite early movie sets like do the right thing (1989) and Lee’s feature debut in 1986 She must have itthe exhibition will include Michael Ray Charles’ sculpture from 1997 (Forever Free)who inspired the 2000 film Bamboos, an eerily prescient satire of reality TV, internet culture and appropriation. The sports section will feature Wiley’s portrayal of Jackie Robinson, the first black athlete to compete in Major League Baseball. Music galleries will include one of Prince’s signature guitars in the form of his ‘Love’ symbol, while a film history section will feature vintage movie posters from directors who inspired Lee, like Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa.
The Lee-focused show is likely to be a crowd-pleaser compared to the current headline-grabbing Brooklyn Museum exhibit, It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso according to Hannah Gadsby (until September 24), which was beset by critics while attracting huge crowds. Spike Lee: Creative Sources will be the museum’s first film exhibition in many years; in 2002 the Brooklyn Museum infamous hosted a traveling exhibition accessories and costumes from the star wars movies.
- Spike Lee: Creative SourcesOctober 6, 2023-February 4, 2024, Brooklyn Museum, New York
