One Way Ticket

One Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series is a collection of all 60 of the panels in Lawrence’s project about The Great Migration.  Each panel is accompanied by a brief description which, when read chronologically, tells the story of the largest migration in American history.  It is amazing to realize that many of these panels were created when Lawrence was just 23 years old.

However, One Way Ticket is about so much more than Jacob Lawrence.  The theme of the exhibit is ‘artist as historian and activist’.  It features photographs by Gordon Parks, paintings by Romare Bearden and William H. Johnson, and first editions of novels by Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen. Throughout the exhibit, there are stations where one can sit and swipe through digital versions of the texts.  One of the most moving parts of The Price of the Ticket was the film of Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” and Marion Anderson singing “My Country Tis of Thee.” 

My only complaints are that it costs $25.00 to get into MOMA (not a "suggested donation") and there is no photography allowed in the exhibit (probably so that you will buy the reproductions of Lawrence’s work on sale). Nevertheless, this was definitely one of the most thorough and engaging exhibits of African-American art that I have seen in a while.  It is suitable for everyone from school children to American history buffs. Go see it before it closes in early September.