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MMCC’s Andrews Legacy Exhibit curator Martina Dodd also serves as Program Director of Curation and Object-Based Learning at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library. CONTRIBUTED
The Madison-Morgan Cultural Center (MMCC) will debut its Andrews Legacy Exhibit Oct. 29, featuring a local Black family that flourished under the trying system of sharecropping tenant farming, according to exhibit curator Martina Dodd.
The Andrews family, with father George, mother Viola, and 10 children, lived in a small house off Plainview Road. Part of the exhibit will emulate the interior of a sharecropper family’s dwelling.
The permanent Andrews Family exhibit will fill a gallery space across the hall from the Cultural Center’s reproduction turn-of-the-century classroom, a classroom none of the Andrews children would have been allowed to attend, Wayne Vason, co-chairman of the exhibit advisory committee, pointed out at a recent MMCC meeting.
The Andrews’ story revolves around the themes of farming, community, education, religion, and family in the segregated rural South. After the exhibit opens, MMCC is planning to host symposiums centered around its underlying themes, too.
Dodd, an Atlanta-based art historian, and curator who currently serves as Program Director of Curation and Object-Based Learning at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, said the build-up to the exhibit included interviews with community members and a dive into the lives of tenant farming in the South in the 1940s and ‘50s.
The exhibit will include original works from nationally recognized artist Benny Andrews, his father George, himself a renowned folk artist known as “The Dot Man,” and written works by Raymond Andrews. The exhibit will also have a “reading nook” featuring some of the Andrews’ works and an area for quiet contemplation. The walls of the exhibit will be adorned with works by Benny and George Andrews and the entrance hallway will include George Andrews’ portraits of his family.
Vason, who was chairman of the Cultural Center Board in 1976 when MMCC opened, said Benny Andrews’ work was included at the Center that day and it was his job to introduce Andrews to speak in the MMCC auditorium.
“We didn’t know how he would react to having his art displayed in the former school he couldn’t go to,” he recalled.
“Benny couldn’t have been more gracious as he described how the arts can bring people together and eventually became a board member and loyal supporter and spokesperson.”
In 1982, MMCC hosted the first exhibit of Benny Andrews’ works, Vason added.
To learn more about the Andrews Family Legacy Gallery exhibition, visit MMCC (434 S. Main St., Madison) online at mmcc-arts.org.