RIGHT ON FOR THE DARKNESS
by Leigh-Ann Jackson
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Derek Fordjour, Thank You Romy (after Romare Bearden), 2025. (Daniel Greer / David Kordansky Gallery)
To borrow from Ray Charles, the nighttime is the right time to experience Derek Fordjour’s Nightsong at David Kordansky Gallery. Actually, it’s the only time — the show is on view from 6 to 10 PM with no daytime hours. That’s fitting for an exhibit that feels like a cross between a juke joint, standing-room-only concert, moonlit serenade, and reverent homegoing.
Enter the gallery, and you’ll find just enough light to see 18 framed works that incorporate Fordjour’s signature combination of materials: jewel-toned acrylic paint, oil pastel, and charcoal layered cardboard and newspaper. Also on view are 11 sculptures made of wood and steel adorned with lush fabrics and glittering trimmings. All depict dignified, impeccably-clad musicians practicing their craft, whether blowing on brass, strumming strings, or opening their mouths wide to sing.
The transformation of the space goes beyond simple lighting. You can find pieces installed at the end of a boggy, mud-lined tunnel or tucked away in an indoor wooded area inspired by Hush Harbors, secluded spaces that enslaved people used for worship and retreat.
Black Radio, 2025. (Daniel Greer / David Kordansky Gallery)
Wherever you are in the gallery, you’re surrounded by music, both live and recorded (including cricket chirps). There are performance spaces — a stage here, raised platforms there — where suited crooners will pay tribute to Aretha Franklin, Ben E. King, and other soul icons, throughout the run of the exhibition. The show also includes a four-hour video collage combining retro concert footage and poignant glimpses of Black folks dancing, rejoicing, or just being.
Earlier this month, I spoke with the Memphis-born, New York-based Fourdjour, during which he shared his thoughts on …
Nightsong’s origins …
I knew the voice was the central muse, and the Black voice in particular, because [it] carries so much history, perseverance, the values of our democracy. Then the world started to go haywire politically, and I thought there's an urgency to us raising our voices. The impetus was, in a time of erasure, to focus on present-day voices, voices of the past, and hopefully inspire voices in the future that are resonant.
Getting started …
It took me about a year to develop the show and all the work. The first painting to be finished was Harlem Basement: The Birth of Black Swan, which was about Harry Pace and the first record label that was Black-owned and made songs by Black talent.
Ethel Waters, in my research about that painting, performed in the South and the day she arrived [in Macon, Ga.], a man was hanged and burned. The evening of her show, his body was deposited in the lobby of the theater. And the show went on. When you think about resilience, music and memory … all of these kinds of legacies exist in the stories in the paintings.
Oscillating Triad, 2025. (Daniel Greer / David Kordansky Gallery)
Replacing bright white with darkness …
We used 28,000 sq. ft. of Duvetyne to wrap the walls and all the physical construction. It’s a material that really gives you this deep, rich, non-reflective black quality. We also carpeted the space. That created this wonderful insulation, so sound doesn't bleed from gallery to gallery.
The idea of nighttime carries mystery, horror, secrecy, rest, anticipation. One of the byproducts of the dark is that inhibitions lower. The cover of darkness allows for a more intimate experience. I've seen people dance and cry or close their eyes. This is exactly what I hoped: they would commune with themselves, with the ideas in the work and with one another.
Curating the playlist …
I wanted to pull from a broad range of genres — because African-Americans have contributed to and founded several. I had 233 songs at the end. With Omar Edwards as head of our musical team, we decided I would make a narrative that would span the four hours. The early songs are about dreaming. Act Two becomes all about resistance. Act Three is about love. Then in Act Four, it’s time to get up. I really wanted to take on the expansiveness of night. That's why the duration is so vast.
Motor Town Miracale, 2025. (Daniel Greer / David Kordansky Gallery)
Setting the stage …
Kya Lou [who co-directed the video] sourced the images in the film. It's made up of 6,000-plus archival moments. We built that on top of the soundtrack, and some of those songs were raised to be live performances. I wanted to use live singers in a limited capacity, but there was a challenge: I didn't want the paintings and sculptures to fall into decoration or to be an afterthought. The solution was that the songs would appear as what I call ‘theatrical fragments.’ They would only appear in a dreamlike way — occasional, without explication.
There are performances that happen in every hour, but they don’t happen in the same place. It really was about how to program each hour in a way that felt spontaneous, unpredictable and would add to the delight in the discovery.
Transmission, 2025. (Daniel Greer / David Kordansky Gallery)
Opening night takeaways …
I saw all these intergenerational, multiracial groups having a shared experience that felt very tailored to each of them. It feels really good to create a space where you don't have to buy anything, you don’t have to have a ticket to be there, there's no marker of what level of access you have. There's just this common space that feels safe enough for people to emote, in which people could be vulnerable.
🎶🎵🎶
Nightsong is on view at David Kordansky Gallery through Oct. 11th; davidkordanskygallery.com.
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