Radical Form: On Faith Ringgold and Suzanne Lacy

Faith Ringgold: American People, 2022. Exhibition view. New Museum, New York. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy New Museum. © Faith Ringgold/ARS.
One day, in the summer of 1972, Faith Ringgold visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. As an artist living in New York City, Ringgold had been making powerfully expressive figurative paintings about race in the United States for just under a decade —works like American People Series #20: Die (1967), a twelve-foot-long mural that depicts the equalizing chaos of homegrown violence—as well as political . . .