“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” This quote is often attributed, perhaps incorrectly, to Maya Angelou, and it may have been first said by one Carl W. Buehner in a 1971 book of quotes. But regardless of its author — and maybe this is the point of the quote — the statement feels both wise and correct.
I thought about this quote when I visited New York artist Kemar Keanu Wynter’s third solo exhibition at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, titled Rücken-. As I wrote in a blurb earlier this month, the title references Rückenfigur, or back figure, most famously represented by Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” (c. 1818). Each of Wynter’s paintings is displayed from the back, hung without a frame or canvas, an invitation to join the artist in the fog of memory and reverie.