Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise extended until February 28, 2010


The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington

Picturing the Promise

Photographs representing nearly a century's worth of creative output from the renowned Scurlock Studio form the backbone of a new exhibition designed to celebrate the legacy of a noted family of photographers and to present a vivid portrait of black Washington, D.C., in all its guises-its challenges and its victories, its dignity and its determination.

"The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise," a collaboration between the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History, is on view through Nov. 15, 2009. It features more than 100 images created by one of the premiere African American studios in the country and one of the longest-running black businesses in Washington; included are cameras and equipment from the studio and period artifacts from the Greater Washington area.

The exhibition is the first to be presented in the National Museum of African American History Culture Gallery, which is located in the newly renovated National Museum of American History. The museum will use this space until its building opens on the National Mall in 2015.

George, Robert, and Addison Scurlock
George, Robert, and Addison Scurlock
Image courtesy of the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Beginning in the early 20th century and continuing into the 1990s, Addison Scurlock, followed by his sons, Robert and George, used their cameras to document and celebrate a community unique in the world. They captured weddings, baptisms, graduations, sporting events, civil protests, high-society affairs and visiting dignitaries. It was for portraiture, however, that the Scurlocks became renowned; they continue to be recognized by scholars and artists as among the very best of 20th century photographers who recorded the rapid changes in African American urban communities nationwide.

Among the portraits' subjects are luminaries such as Marian Anderson, Duke Ellington, Ralph Bunche, Mary McLeod Bethune and Muhammad Ali. Many of the photographs show Washington as the mecca for leaders in African American business, culture and higher education long before New York City's Harlem. They depict successful businesses such as the Underdown Delicatessen, prominent churches such as the Lincoln Temple, myriad community and leisure events such as a summer outing at Highland Beach in Maryland and sporting events at Howard University's Griffith Stadium. The images are drawn from the Scurlock Studio Collection, preserved since 1997 at the Archives Center in the American History Museum and are displayed with cameras and other photographic equipment from the Scurlock Studio.

Also on view are items from the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Black Fashion Museum Collection, and artifacts from Howard University, the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., and the Scurlock family. Among the featured items is the fur coat worn by Marian Anderson during her concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, an event photographed on Easter Sunday of 1939 by Robert Scurlock. The coat is from the collection of the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum.

Co-curators of the exhibition are Michelle Delaney, associate curator of the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History and Paul Gardullo of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The exhibition's richly illustrated, 224-page catalog is available from Smithsonian Books for $35.


SOURCE: NMAAHC

ArtCrawl Harlem: 08.08.09

For more information call 212.866.7427.
To purchase tickets, visit www.artcrawlharlem.com.

SOURCE: Harlem Arts Alliance

Harlem Arts Alliance

Presents its Summer Art Gallery Tour

ArtCrawl Harlem TM

ArtCrawl HarlemTM is a four-hour guided trolley tour of local galleries. Participants visit seven Harlem art galleries and receive a 20-30 minute "tour within a tour" at each site.

The participants receive a tote bag with a bottle of water and refreshments throughout the day.

Each ArtCrawl Harlem TM tour culminates in a reception with food, wine, and music.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Noon to 6pm

Boarding the Trolley bus at Noon

Advance Purchase Required:

Price: $40

FOR MORE INFO CALL 212-866-7427.

Art Credit: On the Main Stage 2008 - Larry Poncho Brown 30' x 40' acrylic on canvas

Harlem Arts Alliance

Presents its Summer Art Gallery Tour

ArtCrawl Harlem TM

ArtCrawl HarlemTM is a four-hour guided trolley tour of local galleries. Participants visit seven Harlem art galleries and receive a 20-30 minute "tour within a tour" at each site.

The participants receive a tote bag with a bottle of water and refreshments throughout the day.

Each ArtCrawl Harlem TM tour culminates in a reception with food, wine, and music.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Noon to 6pm

Boarding the Trolley bus at Noon

Advance Purchase Required:

Price: $40

FOR MORE INFO CALL 212-866-7427.

Art Credit: On the Main Stage 2008 - Larry Poncho Brown 30' x 40' acrylic on canvas

Harlem Arts Alliance

Presents its Summer Art Gallery Tour

ArtCrawl Harlem TM

ArtCrawl HarlemTM is a four-hour guided trolley tour of local galleries. Participants visit seven Harlem art galleries and receive a 20-30 minute "tour within a tour" at each site.

The participants receive a tote bag with a bottle of water and refreshments throughout the day.

Each ArtCrawl Harlem TM tour culminates in a reception with food, wine, and music.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Noon to 6pm

Boarding the Trolley bus at Noon

Advance Purchase Required:

Price: $40

FOR MORE INFO CALL 212-866-7427.

Art Credit: On the Main Stage 2008 - Larry Poncho Brown 30' x 40' acrylic on canvas

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

International Slavery Museum shows Trafficked & Black Brittania: Two Inspiring Exhibitions


LIVERPOOL.- Two inspiring exhibitions are opening at the International Slavery Museum this summer: Trafficked from 31 July 2009 to February 2010 and Black Britannia from 7 August 2009 through 28 February 2010. Both of these thought-provoking exhibitions highlight continued issues in the realm of human and social injustice over 200 years since the abolition of the British slave trade. This exhibition has been produced in partnership with STOP THE TRAFFIK, a global movement of over 1,000 organisations working together to address the problems of human trafficking.

Trafficked
31 July 2009 to February 2010


Trafficked is a community exhibition of contemporary photographs highlighting the on-going struggle to combat human trafficking around the world.

Through interactive aids and human stories the exhibition reveals the struggle of people whose lives have been affected by this modern-day slave trade, as well as demonstrating the continuing global work to stop it.

Human trafficking is a global issue and millions of men, women and children are being treated as commodities - something to be bought, sold and enslaved.

It is the fastest growing form of organised crime and one of the largest money earners for criminals, and the exhibition highlights cases where people have been trafficked into forced labour, sexual exploitation, street begging, credit card fraud and cannabis cultivation.

Lewis Hamilton Photo: © John FergusonBlack Britannia
7 August 2009 to 28 February 2010


Black Britannia showcases 30 inspirational portraits of Black Britons by photographer John Ferguson, celebrating their contribution to British culture and public life over the last few decades.

Surgeons, teachers and fire-fighters feature alongside celebrities such as Lewis Hamilton, Frank Bruno, Charlie Williams and Ms Dynamite.

Each photograph demonstrates the individual’s strength of character and determination to succeed in their chosen field, establishing them as someone to look up to. A broad range of professions are represented and the portraits include comedian Gina Yashere, jockey Royston French, singer Estelle and firewoman Vicky Henry.

Black achiever’s from Liverpool are also represented in the exhibition. Including boxer John Conteh, who was the first British boxer to hold the World Light Heavyweight crown in 25 years, and Gloria Hyatt, founder of the country’s first independent school to cater for Black and racial minority pupils and Liverpool’s first Black headteacher.

Ferguson’s vision for his photography is to inspire Britain’s Black youth in a society where he believes the kinds of Black role-models people grow up with are almost entirely negative.

Ferguson said: “Growing up, I had my own heroes who helped me challenge prejudice in my own life - individuals like Charlie Williams, John Conteh, Joan Armatrading and Bill Morris all included here. This exhibition is my own attempt to give something to the next generation of young Black people.”

SOURCE: AKN

Yinka Shonibare MBE @ The Brooklyn Museum



June 26–September 20, 2009
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor

Period Rooms, 4th Floor
Robert E. Blum Gallery, 1st Floor


This exhibition is a major midcareer survey of work by the UK-based Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE. Shonibare’s artwork explores contemporary African identity and its relationship to European colonialism through painting, sculpture, installation, and moving image. Shonibare is best known for his work with visual symbols, especially the richly patterned Dutch wax fabric produced in Europe for a West African market that he uses in a wide range of applications. His tableaux of headless mannequins costumed in this fabric evoke themes of history and its legacy for future generations. Through these works he explores the complex web of interactions, both economic and racial, that reveal inequalities between the dominant and colonized cultures of Europe, Asia, and Africa. A site-specific installation created for this presentation titled Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play will be on view in several of the Museum’s period rooms.

Another site-specific installation, Party Time—Re-Imagine America: A Centennial Commission by Yinka Shonibare MBE, will be on view at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, from July 1, 2009, to January 3, 2010, in the dining room of the museum’s 1885 Ballantine House.


Yinka Shonibare MBE is organized and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia. The exhibition is curated by Rachel Kent.

www.brooklynmuseum.org

Monday, July 13, 2009

A CAUSE FOR ART @ SANDE WEBSTER GALLERY

A CAUSE FOR ART
VCCA - Alonzo Davis Fellowship Exhibit | In the main gallery
DATES > July 10 - August 29, 2009
RECEPTION > Friday, July 10, 6-8 PM

The Sande Webster Gallery presents A Cause For Art, a juried exhibition of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) fellows, to support the Alonzo Davis Fellowship fund and residency program. This exhibition brings to light a diverse array of creative approaches to art making in photograpy, sculpture, painting and mixed media. These distinct works initiate a dialouge about the many techniques, practices and concepts confronting contemporary artists today. One-third of all sales from this exhibition will benefit The Fellowship fund.

The VCCA is an international working retreat for the finest writers, visual artists and composers. The Fellowship was established by artist Alonzo Davis as an endowment to support two 2-week residencies each year at the VCCA for American artists of Latino or African descent. This benefit exhibition will help to ensure that the most promising artists have an opportunity to pursue the creative process in a supportive environment in the company of other artists.

Visit http://alonzodavis.com/adfellowship to view the work, www.vcca.com for more information about the VCCA or email vcca@vcca.com.

TEL: 215-636-9003 | FAX 215.646.9008 | E-MAIL: artswg@aol.com
2006 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
www.sandewebstergallery.com


SOURCE: SWG

British Painter Hurvin Anderson to Solo at Studio Museum in Harlem


NEW YORK, NY.- The Studio Museum in Harlem will present British painter Hurvin Anderson in his first U.S. solo museum exhibition, Hurvin Anderson: Peter’s Series 2007-2009. This exhibition will include seven paintings and nine works on paper that engage traditions of landscape painting and abstraction. Hurvin Anderson (b. 1965) was born in Birmingham, UK to Jamaican parents. He attended the Wimbledon School of Art from 1991-94, and the Royal College of Art from 1996-98. His work reflects his British upbringing alongside with his Caribbean heritage. On exhibition 16 July through 25 October, 2009.

Hurvin Anderson - Peter's Sitters 3 2009, Oil on canvas, 187 x 147 cm.Fascinated with places of social interaction, Anderson captures the unique social and cultural space of a small attic barbershop established in the home of Caribbean immigrants. For Anderson, the barbershop functions as a personal space loaded with imagery, and also houses intertwined political, economic and social histories of Caribbean immigrants in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. Businesses such as these were created in peoples’ homes and served as spaces where people could come together to socialize and stay connected. The attic plays a duel role of a place which still exists and functions, yet recalls a much older and perhaps forgotten time; a place where history was quietly made.

Like many of Anderson’s other works, the pieces in “Peter’s Series” started as photographs. These he took one day while waiting for his father to finish getting a haircut. Finding the space both complex and ambiguous, Anderson explored the technical exercise of recreating it many times; continually reducing the interior architecture to its basic colors and simple geometric forms. Drawing from memory and imagination, Anderson creates new spaces and dialogue within each painting. At first intrigued by the physical features of the attic, the early paintings focus on the architecture of the barbershop, providing multiple perspectives of the space which function like portraits. In later paintings, he centralizes an anonymous figure in the barber’s chair, further negotiating between functional space and shared experience, while also providing a voyeuristic glimpse of a private moment.

He has painted several series which focus on private and public gathering places, taking form in landscapes, interior scenes, and portraits. Anderson was the artist-in-residence at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2006, and recently had his first solo museum show at the Tate Britain this past spring. In addition, he has exhibited at the Mead Gallery, the Warwick Arts Centre, and the Thomas Dane Gallery.

The Studio Museum in Harlem founded in 1968, in a rented loft located at Fifth Avenue and 125th Streets, The Studio Museum in Harlem has supported some of the most influential American artist. The basic principle leading to its establishment was simple: to create an uptown space focused on contemporary experimental art. After two years of preparation, the museum celebrated the opening of its first exhibition, Electronic Reflections II, featuring works by artist Tom Lloyd, in September 1968.

Originally, the museum focused on workshops and exhibition programs that were designed to give artists a space to practice their craft, create works and show them. This idea led the trustees of the museum to start an Artist-in-Residence program. The Artist-in-Residence program will celebrate its 40th year in 2010. It has helped to cultivate the art making practices and careers of more than one hundred artists. “The Studio Museum in Harlem is the nexus for black artists locally, nationally, and internationally, and for work that has been inspired by black culture. It is a site for the dynamic exchange of ideas about art and society.” Visit : http://www.studiomuseum.org/

Source: AKN

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The National Black Arts Festival 2009 at the Hagedorn Foundation Gallery

For more information visit www.nbaf.org or Hagedorn Foundation Gallery

Gibbes Museum of Art to host Ancestry & Innovation ~ African American Art



Charleston, South Carolina The Gibbes Museum of Art will present the Smithsonian traveling exhibition Ancestry & Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum from July 31 through October 11, 2009. The range of artistic expressions by self-taught African American artists from the rural South and the urban North is explored in this exhibition culled from the American Folk Art Museum’s rich holdings. Ancestry & Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum highlights complex and vibrant quilts, paintings, works on paper and sculpture by contemporary African American artists.

Comprising ten quilts and nearly thirty works of art in various media, Ancestry & Innovation includes paintings by an elder generation of creators, such as David Butler, Sam Doyle, Bessie Harvey and Clementine Hunter; works by contemporary masters, such as Thornton Dial Sr.; and provocative pieces by emerging artists, such as Kevin Sampson and Willie LeRoy Elliot. Juxtaposed with richly patterned and graphically exciting quilts, the exhibition celebrates the ongoing contribution of black artists to the kaleidoscope of American cultural and visual experience.

“We’re delighted that objects from New York’s American Folk Art Museum will be featured throughout our second floor galleries in this exciting exhibition offered through the Smithsonian. The folk art tradition is a strong component of the history of art in the South. Ancestry & Innovation allows us to provide a context for this creative story,” noted Gibbes Executive Director Angela Mack.

Stacy C. Hollander, senior curator and director of exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum, and Brooke Davis Anderson, director and curator of The Contemporary Center at the museum, are the curators of the exhibition. “The unique presentation of vibrant quilts in conjunction with sculpture and painting enriches the viewer’s appreciation for the complexity and vitality of African American expression,” said Stacy C. Hollander.

Ancestry & Innovation was organized by the American Folk Art Museum in New York, and circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The exhibition was made possible by the generous support of MetLife Foundation. The National Endowment for the Arts provided generous support to the American Folk Art Museum through its American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius initiative. Sponsors of the exhibition at the Gibbes include the auxiliary group Gibbes, etc. and media sponsor Charleston Magazine.

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM
Since its inception, the American Folk Art Museum has explored the creativity of African Americans through its exhibitions, collections and publications. Drawings, sculptures, paintings and quilts by black artists have become a vital part of the museum’s holdings, and 20th-century artists are represented through significant numbers of works. Since its founding in 1961, the American Folk Art Museum has been one of the nation’s foremost resources for the study, collection, preservation and enjoyment of folk art. The museum is home to one of the world’s pre-eminent collections of folk art dating from the 17th century to the present, including paintings, sculpture, photography, textiles, ceramics and other decorative arts, as well as the work of contemporary self-taught artists from this country and abroad.

SITES – SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION TRAVELING EXHIBITION SERVICE
SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for more than 50 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play. Exhibition descriptions and tour schedules are available at www.sites.si.edu .

GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART
Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858, the Gibbes Museum of Art opened its doors to the public in 1905. Located in Charleston’s historic district, the Gibbes houses a premier collection of over 10,000 works, principally American with a Charleston or Southern connection, and presents special exhibitions throughout the year. In addition, the museum offers an extensive complement of public programming and educational outreach initiatives that serve the community by stimulating creative expression and improving the region’s superb quality of life.

MUSEUM HOURS
TUESDAY - SATURDAY: 10 A.M. - 5 P.M., SUNDAY: 1 P.M. - 5 P.M.

ADMISSION:
ADULTS: $9.00 · SENIORS, STUDENTS & MILITARY: $7.00 · CHILDREN (6-12): $5.00
·MEMBERS AND CHILDREN UNDER 6: FREE.
135 Meeting Street * Charleston, SC * 29401 * www.gibbesmuseum.org
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Source: Art Knowledge News

Time.com Talks with Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare, the London-based artist of Nigerian descent, was in New York recently to install his new retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. While he was here we grabbed some lunch to talk about his background and his art. In this first part of the conversation we discuss the evolution of his best known works, the satires of colonialism and other power structures that he carries out by making headless figures dressed in 18th or 19th-century costumes. Those costumes are always made of "African" cloth that actually originated with the Dutch, who lifted it from the Batik cloth of their Indonesian colony, then marketed it to Africa. It's a complicated world out there. To read the article in its entirety, click HERE.

Artist David Garibaldi Michael Jackson Trilogy Tribute




Sacramento-based visual and performance artist David Garibaldi decided to pay tribute to the late, great Michael Jackson during a trilogy of paintings. Unfortunately, the prints aren't for sale but to receive more information on the works click HERE.