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Valerie Maynard: An Interview

Video Data Bank

1996 01:00:28 United StatesEnglishColorMono4:3Hi8 video
Tags:
Activism , African-American , Politics , Sculpture , Social Justice , VDB Interviews , Visual Art

Description

In this 1996 interview, African-American sculptor, printmaker and designer Valerie Maynard (b.1937) describes growing up in Harlem in the mid-20th Century and her awareness of the importance of community during her upbringing. Recalling the prominence of the Baptist church in her early life, Maynard discusses how religion brought her into contact with local politicians who impressed upon her the importance of affecting change. The artist notes how an early affiliation with Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and her brother’s incarceration propelled her interest in social justice and the workings of the judicial system.

Maynard cites this interest as the motivating factor for her controversial statements about racial discrimination made during the opening of one of her exhibitions in Sweden. She concludes by describing how this outspoken and irreverent commitment to equality has continued through her life and work ever since.

— Kyle Riley

Interview conducted by Frankie Brown in October 1996, edited in 2014.

 

The Video Data Bank is the leading resource in the United States for videotapes by and about contemporary artists. The VDB collection features innovative video work made by artists from an aesthetic, political or personal point of view. The collection includes seminal works that, seen as a whole, describe the development of video as an art form originating in the late 1960's and continuing to the present. Works in the collection employ innovative uses of form and technology, mixed with original visual style to address contemporary art and cultural themes.

Founded in 1976 at the inception of the media arts movement in the United States, the Video Data Bank is one of the nation's largest providers of alternative and art-based video. Through a successful national and international distribution service, the VDB distributes video art, documentaries made by artists, and recorded interviews with visual artists, photographers and critics.