Painted in 1994, AACM illustrates the intersection of two revolutionary movements out of Chicago in the 1960s: AfriCOBRA and AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). Seeded concurrently, these movements of multidisciplinary thinkers helped to shape the identity of the 1960s Black arts community, evolving freedom through Jazz and pride through visual African references. The seminal AACM painting honors the relationship between these movements, laid out within the characteristic framework of the AfriCOBRA style. Depicting the musicians of the AACM in full concert, the figures are highly stylized and influenced by drawings of Jarrell’s three children, Wadsworth, Jr., Jennifer and Roslyn when they were between ages 2-10 years old. AACM was painted on tempered masonite to withstand the weather while being mounted on the outside on of Wadsworth and his wife Jae’s studio in Atlanta, Georgia. The painting is executed with a method known as combing, with cardboard and a tool made of a plastic-scrappers with grooves cut in to achieve striations influenced by Benin Sculpture.

Many of Jarrell’s subjects are jazz musicians; this large-scale painting honors five core members of the AACM: Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Steve McCall, Fred Hopkins, and Muhal Richard Adams. The musicians are engulfed in texture created from a concrete palette knife, and saturated with AfriCOBRA’s “Cool Ade” colors, abandoning traditional brush strokes. Jarrell uses his technique to create negative images, applying thick pigment and combing them over cutout templates such as leaves and abstract forms. The combed ridges of color become both form and content, while geometric shapes and ripples reference AfriCOBRA and the sense of movement inherent in jazz.

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PROVENANCE
Collection of the Artist

EXHIBITIONS
The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, July 11 - November 22, 2015.
The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA, September 14, 2016 - March 19, 2017.
Preview for Olympiad Show, WJ Studios, New York City, 1996.
A Shared Ideology (Olympiad Show), City Gallery East, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996.

LITERATURE
"The Freedom Principle 11 Jul — 22 Nov 2015 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, United States", Wall Street International Magazine, 10 July 2015. Online.
Bloom, Robin. "Weekly Entertainment Guide – Object Temporarily Removed." WHYY, 15 March 2017. Online.

PUBLICATIONS
Beckwith, Naomi and Dieter Roelstreate. "The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now." University of Chicago Press, 2015. pp. 142 - 143. illustrated.