New York Magazine - The Best New York Art Shows of 2021
"Winfred Rembert: 1945–2021,” Fort Gansevoort
What a nightmare this country has been for Black Americans. Witness the artist Winfred Rembert, who grew up in Georgia and died this past March at the age of 75: He survived a near lynching and near castration at 21, imprisonment, and time working on chain gangs. Then, at 51, he started making extraordinary painted and carved images of all he’d experienced, working on leather. His densely populated, intensely colored tableaux of figures in prison uniforms toiling in fields are psychedelic looking glasses onto the long American night of racism. His art is one of the greatest documents of life in the South and much else; see his images and feel the winds of history, hatred, and love. With the help of a few recent gallery shows, Rembert should soon be recognized as a visionary worthy of a U.S. postage stamp.
-- Jerry Saltz