Tammie Rubin

This ceramic group speaks to the generational impact of the Great Migration (ca. 1915–1970), when millions of rural Southern Black Americans relocated to Northern cities to escape poverty and racial violence. The conical shapes readily reference the Ku Klux Klan, but the artist’s context also includes “hoods, headdresses, and helmets that manifest power, awe, anonymity, horror, and magical thinking.”

Recalling Rubin’s own family’s migration to Chicago, the work at center is inscribed with a map of the city, punctuated by dots and dashes that symbolize time, bodies, and experiences related to the Great Migration. Rubin describes Always & Forever as “carrying the power of generational tradition and cultural legacies, marking significant places in time during our current period of rapid social evolution.” 

–Elizabeth Williams, David and Peggy Rockefeller Curator of Decorative Arts and Design