GREENWOOD, Miss. On Saturday evening, June 18, Memphis-based artist Desmond Lewis was in a public park unloading cakes — bundles of fireworks connected by a high-speed fuse — from a pickup truck. On the other side of a nearby treeline, about 150 spectators waited for the June 10 celebrations in the town billed as “the cotton capital of the world.”
“The first rule of fireworks,” Lewis said, standing over a large box of explosives in the sustained heat, “is, don’t place any part of your body over the explosive you don’t want to lose.”
Lewis, 28, is lanky and bespectacled. He wears dark-rimmed goggles because, as he puts it, “I’m always doing things.” He gave a good-natured grimace as he lifted the box to his chest.
Lewis is primarily a sculptor, creating works that are forged, carved, fabricated and cast from industrial materials. His objects connect concrete with steel, wood and rebar. A block of pockmarked and grooved concrete anchors a steel structure in “Bout that split tho” (2021), for example. In another, the sculpture “America’s Forgotten” (2017) looms on the campus of the University of Memphis, where Lewis earned his Masters of Fine Arts degree. It features a vertical cylinder of concrete decorated with large pieces of steel in the form of broken links of a chain.
Lewis recognizes an analogy in his works: to him, their smooth surfaces are reminiscent of the ways in which the complex national narratives that surround African-American labor history are rejected, overlaid or whitewashed. Many structures feature finely ground concrete, he says, “massed to look pristine” — an impulse he resists. His sculptures appear mutilated or on the verge of ruin. They expose their own entrails in ways Lewis understands as representative of the inseparable fiction of white supremacy and the material reality of black life. Far from stark, however, Lewis’s sculptures are characterized by bits of whimsy – a pop of color, a cheerful placement, a sentimental handprint.
That equal relationship between tenderness and violence remains evident during the artist’s turn from what the art collector and minority shareholder of the Memphis Grizzlies Elliot Perry admiringly characterizes as “hard materials” to more ethereal pyrotechnics, which Lewis considers highly sculptural.
Lewis’ pyrotechnic experiments began in the summer of 2018 when he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture – a highly selective and storied summer residence for emerging artists in rural Maine with illustrious alumni such as Ellsworth Kelly, David Driskell and Robert Indiana. During his residency, Lewis began mulling over breaking points. He struggled with images of police brutality and the accompanying protests in places like Ferguson, Mo. and Baltimore. “As a black person,” he explains, “you can only hold in so much for so long.”
While conducting visual research to explore the ways in which a “highly justified” explosion could be sculpted, Lewis realized that there was little visual difference between the flames emanating from fireworks and those of a burning car. “One is socially acceptable,” he says, “the other is not.” To test his theory, Lewis constructed three small concrete columns and placed fireworks inside them.
In the twilight in a large meadow Lewis lit his first fireworks.
“It was exciting,” recalls Sarah Workneh, Skowhegan’s co-director. “Everyone was pretty excited that it happened and that it could happen here,” she said of the audience. “They were enthusiastic about the event itself, by showing what is possible.” In addition to his full-time teaching position at the Yale School of Art, Lewis works as a sculpture manager at Skowhegan. Workneh characterizes the power of those early fireworks as part of Lewis’ “dangerous generosity.”
That first foray plunged Lewis into the complex, multimillion-dollar industry of professional pyrotechnics. 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 displaying fireworks could be prohibitive for resource-poor communities, many of whom are black, he realized, and the industry is predominantly white. Lewis was undaunted.
He started working part-time for a large pyrotechnics company where he obtained on-the-job training and eventually his display operator license. As part of his job, Lewis was sent to small towns in the Southeast, where he was one of the few black people. He described these experiences as “scary” and “uncomfortable.”
“As a black under 30 in this country,” he says, “I have two options. I can either be five feet underground or in a five foot cell. The labor it takes to avoid those options is just inherent survival risks.”
Independently, Lewis sought licenses in multiple Southeastern states and eventually his federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Type 54 license, which allows him to purchase, transport and operate professional fireworks, in conjunction with a commercial driver’s license with a hazardous materials approval. to shoot.
“Part of what I like about fireworks,” Lewis explained, “is that I can be in the dark.”
Pyrotechnics are not new in contemporary art. Judy Chicago set off fireworks in the desert as part of her feminist resistance to the Land Art movement in the 1960s. More recently, Cai Guo-Qiang has achieved international acclaim for his explosive art, perhaps most popular at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But Lewis’s displays are tonally different from these lavish productions.
At this point, Lewis is covering all of his own travel and transportation costs for the fireworks (although the organizers are paying for the materials and the cost of insurance). He has little control over the product he buys, mainly because supply chain delays put the industry in trouble. Sometimes Lewis doesn’t even know what colors are available. His shows are accurately timed. “What I’m learning about myself,” he says, “is that I really like logistics.” But for most onlookers, they’re indistinguishable from shows you might see around Fourth of July.
Greenwood is located 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 line. The city currently hosts two fireworks displays – one featuring a Christmas parade and another for Independence Day, but none for Juneteenth. Two hours south in Jackson, where 80 percent of the population identifies as black and the poverty line hovers around 24 percent, the city council voted earlier this year to fund pyrotechnics on June 14 and July 4 — a combined cost of $ 25,000 – according to news reports.
To arrive in Greenwood, Lewis flew from Bangor, Me., to Nashville, Tennessee. He then drove to Indiana to pick up the fireworks and returned via Memphis before continuing south to Leflore County. The ride took him about 15 hours. He towed nearly 300 pounds of fireworks for a show that would clock in under five minutes. Lewis would drive back to Memphis that evening for an early flight the next morning. He’d never been to Greenwood, but the building plans he’d sent ahead of time were approved by the fire department.
The Juneteenth festival had the feel of an extended family reunion. It was hosted by three friends, all in their twenties, who grew up in Greenwood. They viewed it as both a celebration and “a reminder that your ancestors were not free,” as Kenneth Milton Jr., one of the organizers, explained. The participants danced, joined in a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and played a healthy (albeit raw) game of kickball.
As darkness fell, Lewis began his display as planned. It was the last event of the day.
The sky lit up with flashes of pink and green, and the air hissed with sound. Suddenly, Lewis sprinted from the tailgate of his truck where he’d operated the show, from the edge of a baseball field to the wire mesh fencing that surrounded the outfield. A man – with no ties to the Juneteenth event – had crossed the safety radius that Lewis had established. Lewis yelled at him to come back, but the man persisted. If he were injured, Lewis would be liable.
While everyone was looking to the sky, Lewis spent the final minutes of the show “eye to eye” with the man, using his body as a shield between the intruder and the exploding fireworks. When the explosions stopped, the unidentified man strolled back to the street adjacent to the public park.
Oops and cheers could be heard from the distant crowd. Cars honked appreciatively from the road, but Lewis didn’t indicate he heard them.
“Sensational,” Kamron Daniels, 24, one of the other organizers, said shortly after the show’s end. When asked if they would do it all again, he replied, “Without a doubt.”
Mayor Carolyn McAdams said: “It’s a wonderful event for Greenwood,” adding: “It was a well-attended event, safe and aimed at people enjoying life with friends and family.”
Greenwood was the only June party Lewis “shot” this year – in pyrotechnic parlance – but in the future he hopes to host a wave of screenings to honor the holiday.
When asked if the cost and effort is worth the reward for such a short fireworks display, Lewis replied, “Why can’t we just have our five minutes?”
