GREENWOOD, Miss. On Saturday night, June 18, Memphis-based artist Desmond Lewis was unloading cakes – bundles of fireworks connected by a high-speed fuse – from a pickup in a public park. On the other side of a nearby tree line, about 150 expectant spectators waited for the June celebration in the city announced as “the cotton capital of the world”.
“The first line of fireworks,” Lewis said as he stood over a large box of explosives in the continuing heat, “is do not place any body part over the explosives that you do not want to lose.”
Lewis, 28, is slender and spectacular. He wears dark-frame prescription safety goggles because, as he puts it, “I always do well.” He gives a kind-hearted grimace as he lifts the box to his chest.
Lewis primarily creates sculptor works that are forged, carved, manufactured and cast from industrial materials. Its objects connected concrete to steel, wood and reinforcement. A block of hewn and striped concrete anchors a steel construction in “Bout that split tho” (2021), for example. In another, the sculpture “America’s Forgotten” (2017) appears 16 feet high on the campus of the University of Memphis, where Lewis received his Master’s degree in Fine Arts. It features a vertical cylinder of concrete decorated with large pieces of steel shaped like broken links of a chain.
In his works, Lewis acknowledges an analogy: For him, their smooth surfaces are reminiscent of the ways in which the complex national narratives surrounding African-American labor history are rejected, disguised, or whitewashed. Many constructions have found concrete, he says, “massaged to look pristine” – an impulse he cares about. His sculptures appear mutilated or on the brink of ruin. They expose their own interiors in ways that Lewis understands as representative of the inseparable fiction of white supremacy and the material realities of Black life. Lewis’s sculptures, however, are far from grim, but are characterized by bits of whimsy — a doll of color, a fine placement, a sentimental handprint.
That equal relationship between tenderness and violence is still evident in the artist’s turn from what the Memphis Grizzlies’ art collector and minority shareholder Elliot Perry admiringly characterizes as “hard materials” to more ethereal fireworks, which Lewis considers highly sculptural.
Lewis’s fireworks experimentation began in the summer of 2018 when he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture – a highly selective and sublime summer residence for emerging Maine rural artists boasting such glorious alumni as Ellsworth Kelly, David Driskell and Robert Indiana. During his stay, Lewis began to chew on breaking points. He has struggled with images of police brutality and accompanying protests in places like Ferguson, Mo. and Baltimore. “As a black person,” he explains, “you can only hold so much for so long.”
While doing visual research to investigate the ways in which a “very justified” explosion can become sculpture, Lewis realized that there was little visual difference between the flames emanating from a firework and that of a burning car. “The one is socially acceptable,” he says, “the other is not.” To test his theory, Lewis built three small concrete columns and placed fireworks in them.
At dusk in a large meadow, Lewis lit his first fireworks display.
“It was exciting,” recalled Sarah Workneh, co-director of Skowhegan. “Everyone was very excited that it happened and that it could happen here,” she said of the audience. “They were excited about the event itself, by showing what is possible.” In addition to his full-time position as a lecturer at the Yale School of Art, Lewis works as the sculpture store manager at Skowhegan. Workneh describes the power of that early fireworks display as part of Lewis’ “dangerous generosity.”
That first invasion plunged Lewis into the complex, multi-million-dollar industry of professional firearms. He wanted access to an industry governed by complex state and federal regulations and dominated by a small number of large corporations. The cost of display fireworks can be unaffordable for communities with deficient resources, many of them Black, I realized, and the industry is predominantly white. Lewis was unknown.
He started working part-time for a large fireworks company that received on-the-job training and eventually got his exhibit operator license. As part of his job, Lewis was sent to small towns across the Southeast where he was one of a few Black people. He described these experiences as “frightening” and “uncomfortable”.
“As a sub-30 Black man in this country,” he says, “I have two options. I can be either six feet underground or in a six foot cell. The labor it takes to avoid those options is only inherent risks of survival. “
Independently, Lewis sought licenses in several Southeastern states and eventually his federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Type 54 license, which allowed him – in conjunction with a commercial driver’s license containing a hazardous material endorsement – to purchase, transport and carry fireworks of a professional grade. shoot.
“Part of what I like about fireworks,” Lewis explained, “is that I can be in the dark.”
Pirotechnics is not new in contemporary art. Judy Chicago caused fireworks to explode in the desert as part of her feminist setback to the Land Art movement in the 1960s. More recently, Cai Guo-Qiang gained international fame for his explosive art, perhaps the most popular at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony. But Lewis’ exhibitions differ from these lavish productions.
At present, Lewis accepts all the costs of his own travel and transportation of the fireworks (although organizers pay for the materials and the cost of insurance). He has little control over the product he buys, especially since delays in the supply chain are bothering the industry. Sometimes Lewis does not even know what colors are available. His performances are carefully tuned. “one thing I learn from myself,” he says, “is I really love logistics.” But for most spectators, they are indistinguishable from performances you can see around the Fourth of July.
Greenwood is on the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta, not far from where the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha rivers meet to form the Yazoo. According to the 2021 U.S. Census, more than 70 percent of the city’s 1,400 residents identify as Black. Nearly 30 percent of the population lives below the national poverty threshold. The city is currently hosting two fireworks displays – one with a Christmas parade, and another for Independence Day, but not one for June-10. Two hours south of Jackson, where 80 percent of the population identifies as black and the poverty line moves around 24 percent, the city council earlier this year approved measures to fund fireworks on June and July 4 – a combined cost of $ 25,000 – according to news reports .
To arrive in Greenwood, Lewis traveled from Bangor, Me., To Nashville, Tenn. He then drove to Indiana to pick up the fireworks and returned through Memphis before heading further south to Leflore County. The ride took him about 15 hours. He was transporting nearly 300 pounds of fireworks for a show that would last less than five minutes. Lewis would drive back to Memphis that evening to catch a flight early the next morning. He had never been to Greenwood before, but site plans he had sent in advance had been approved by the fire department.
The June tenth festival had the feel of an extended family reunion. It was organized by three friends, all in their 20s, who grew up in Greenwood. They saw it as a celebration and “a reminder that your ancestors were not free,” as Kenneth Milton Jr., one of the organizers, explained. Participants danced, participated in a version of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and played a wholesome (if noisy) kicking ball.
As the darkness broke in, Lewis began his show as scheduled. It was the last opportunity of the day.
The sky lit up with pink and green flashes and the sky hissed with sound. Suddenly, Lewis ran from the tailgate of his truck where he was driving the show from the perimeter of a baseball field to the chain link fence that surrounded the outside field. A man – with no commitment to the Juneteenth event – violated the safety radius established by Lewis. Lewis shouted for him to come back, but the man persisted. Should he be injured, Lewis will be liable.
While everyone looked up at the sky, Lewis spent the last minutes of the show “eye-to-eye” with the man, using his body as a shield between the intruder and the fireworks that exploded. When the explosions ended, the unidentified man hurled back into the street bordering the public park.
Oops and cheers could be heard from the distant crowd. Cars topped off the road appreciatively, but Lewis gave no indication that he had heard them.
“Sensational,” said Kamron Daniels, 24, another organizer, moments after the show closed. When asked if they would do it again, I replied, “Without a doubt.”
Mayor Carolyn McAdams said: “It’s a great event for Greenwood,” adding, “it was a well-attended event, safe and catered for people who enjoy life with friends and family.”
Greenwood was the only Juneteenth celebration that Lewis “shot” this year – in the pyrotechnic language – but in the future he hopes to arrange a wave of exhibitions to honor the holiday.
When asked if the expense and effort was worth it for such a short fireworks display, Lewis replied, “Why can’t we just have our five minutes?”