For more than 30 years, the creation of fashion designer Ruth E. Carter has brought the African-American experience to the big screen, from the 19th-century “Amistad” slave ship to the “doing the right thing” in Brooklyn in the 1980s. The land of non-liberal Wakanda is located in the “Black Panther”. Now, she brings her work to Pittsburgh and presents a new exhibition called “Heroes & Sheroes: Ruth E. Carter’s Art and Influence in Black Cinema”.
The show recently opened at Senator John Heinz’s historic center, exhibiting more than 40 out of nine movies and continuing until December 2.
Carter said in a recent telephone interview: “I have been thinking about reviewing for a while, I really like Pittsburgh, so this seems to be a comfortable place to test the waters of the exhibition.”
Since Spike Lee hired her as a “Daze School Costume Designer” in the early 1980s, Carter has transformed more than 50 films for the design of theatre companies and dance companies. They are not only cooperating with more than a dozen movies.
She also won two Oscar-winning best fashion design nominations, first in 1993 Lee’s “Malcolm X” – which made her the first nominated African-American in the category – and the history of Steven Spielberg in 1998 The slave ship drama “Amistad”. She was also nominated for the Emmy Award for the “root” in 2016.
The exhibition will celebrate her rich career and showcase sketches and film clips as well as costumes in the film, including “Amistad”, “Sparkle”, “What is the relationship between love and it”, “The Butler”, “Malcolm X”, “Selma, “do the right thing,” and of course the “black panther.”
“I think fashion design is a bit mysterious to people, and it’s an opportunity to understand fashion designers as artists and storytellers,” Carter said. “In my 35 years of dressing, I have found that my creative process and the movies I have made have narratives and sounds. These films have been lined up to tell the story of African-Americans in this country.”