What hidden histories were unearthed in this stunning S.F. art exhibition?

San Francisco Chronicle​

9 hours ago

Cheryl Haines hurried up and down Fort Point's spiral stone staircases on a recent morning, her trademark blue-and-blond hair whipping in the wind coming off the Bay.
The founding executive director and chief curator for For-Site was hustling between the second and third floors of the Civil War-era brick landmark at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge to check on artists putting finishing touches on their installations before opening day of 'Black Gold: Stories Untold' earlier this month.
For-Site's seventh ambitious collaboration with the National Park Service features multimedia work by 17 contemporary artists, including 25 new commissions, highlighting the accomplishments and civic contributions of African Americans who lived in California from the Gold Rush through Reconstruction (circa 1848-77).
'Black Gold' illuminates the lives of Black entrepreneurs, abolitionists, civic leaders and Buffalo Soldiers (all-African American Army regiments on the Western frontier), and examines the link between enslavement and the struggle for full legal rights during California's early statehood.
'This feels just right, doesn't it?' said Haines, standing in front of British Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare's sculptural installation 'Man Moving Up' (2022). She was referring to the placement of Shonibare's work at the beginning of the exhibition, in a southwest corner of the fort that previously housed one of its 10,000-pound cannons (removed in order to crane in Shonibare's work).
Shonibare's work, which references the Great Migration, depicts a formerly enslaved man, dressed in ornate Victorian clothes sewn from African textiles, with a globe for a head. He's carrying his personal belongings in two valises as he ascends an ornate staircase.
The first sight that greets visitors upon entering the fort is San Francisco artist Mildred Howard 's striking work. She's wrapped three larger-than-life male statues — of the state's first governor Peter Burnett, first U.S. Senator William Gwin and national anthem lyricist Francis Scott Key — in head-to-toe bright red fabric, concealing their identities. Positioned in the fort's arched top-floor openings, the figures provide a jarring burst color against the weathered brick, theirposes both commanding and enigmatic. All of them were slave owners and Confederate sympathizers, in conflict with California's founding as a 'free state.'
One floor down is Los Angeles artist Umar Rashid's immersive installation, three tents titled 'By Land. By Sea. By Star.' They serve as 'portals' dedicated to the memories of William Shorey, a revered 19th-century Black whaling captain, and James Beckwourth, who was born enslaved in 1798 and later became a skilled West Coast frontiersman.
'My hope is that sharing all these stories and legacies will build up some cultural pride and a greater sense of belonging here,' said Haines.
She went on to explain that as the Black population has been declining in San Francisco.
'There's a whole new generation that really don't understand how important their legacy is here, that Black Californians have been central, not marginal, to our collective narrative,' she said. 'San Francisco was the center of Black California for a long time.'
Haines worked closely for the last 18 months with an advisory team of scholars, educators and curators who, she said, provided research and advised on selecting 'artists whose work is materially diverse and conceptually rigorous, yet approachable on a community level.'
Although Haines drew inspiration from ' Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California,' a 2022 public education campaign and podcast produced by the ACLU of Northern California, she said the seeds of the idea for 'Black Gold' were planted years earlier when her 95-year-old father gave her an article on the Buffalo Soldiers.
'I knew there were once Buffalo Soldiers in the Presidio, but I had no idea there are 450 buried right here in the (Presidio) cemetery,' said Haines. 'I discovered that early Black history in California has not been shared or discussed widely enough.'
Historian and curator at the California African American Museum, Susan Anderson, who advised Haines, agreed.
'People rarely think of California in the context of the Civil War,' she said. 'We know the battlegrounds didn't extend to the West in a military way, but the issue of whether we would be a country that tolerated the enslavement of millions of Black people was fought out in California.' she said.
Fort Point was completed in 1861 to fortify the West Coast against possible naval invasion, and California was deeply entangled in the national conflict over slavery. 'I think a lot of people forget that,' continued Anderson.
For 'Black Gold,' Detroit-based artist Akea Brionne created a colorful, intricately beaded 7.5-foot-tall portrait of Mary Ellen Pleasant, the wealthiest Black woman in California during the Gold Rush. An abolitionist and entrepreneur, whose fair skin allowed her to pass for white, Pleasant used her wealth — and her stately mansion at the corner of Octavia and Butler streets — to challenge racial discrimination in the Bay Area and beyond.
Brionne, who lived in San Francisco for several years after graduating from Napa's Oxbow School in 2018, said she hopes the exhibition 'demystifies the idealized and romanticized idea of California many people have who aren't from there.'
'It hasn't always been for everyone a land of prosperity and opportunity,' she added.
That desire to correct historical narratives runs through the exhibition — and aligns with Haines' own vision. Amid ongoing political efforts to suppress Black history, she describes the project not as an act of protest, but of humanity.
'I feel as though we're just scratching the surface,' she said. 'There's so much more to talk about.'