THE.NOIR.ARTS.GALLERY

WALRUS TV | Brian Barneclo | "Spare Paint"

2010-03-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

Charles Moore | Civil Rights Photographer | R.I.P.

2010-03-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

Mr. Moore’s camera snapped the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being arrested in Montgomery, Ala., in 1958, and James Meredith integrating the University of Mississippi in the face of a screaming mob in 1962.

He photographed Bull Connor using dogs and high-pressure hoses on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, and recorded a black man being viciously beaten by a white lawman during the “Bloody Sunday” march from Selma, Ala., in 1965.

To read more, click HERE.

JACOB LAWRENCE | Hudson River Museum | thru June 6, 2010

2010-03-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK, NY.- Jacob Lawrence, born in 1917, became one of the most important African American artists of the twentieth century, renowned for his paintings of African Americans and black people of other lands who struggled for freedom. Jacob Lawrence Prints, 1963 – 2000, at the Hudson River Museum through June 6, 2010, include 81 of Lawrence’s brilliantly-colored individual prints as well as three series of prints that show his versatility as an artist and storyteller. The Legend of John Brown series depicts a deeply religious and passionately anti-slavery John Brown, who felt called to violent insurrection to dismantle the institution of slavery in the United States; the Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis series is based on Lawrence’s memories of the Baptist ministers of his youth, whose sermons contained stories of Creation; and the series on Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture focuses on the Haitian slave who became the commander of the revolutionary army that fought France and England for Haiti’s freedom.

A key theme of this exhibition is struggle. As Lawrence himself said, “I am dealing with struggle throughout my work, I think struggle is a beautiful thing. I think it has made our country what it is, starting with the American Revolution. I would like to think of the struggle in my work as not being just a black symbol, but a symbol of man’s capacity to endure and triumph.”

Before he was twenty, Jacob Lawrence developed a powerful, concise style that expressed all of the vibrancy and pathos of his Harlem neighborhood and its residents. He drew his material from the colors, sounds, and sites of the Harlem Renaissance. Although born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, his family moved, in 1930, to Harlem, the focal point of African American culture.

A painter, illustrator, and educator, Lawrence received his early art training at the Utopia Settlement House in Philadelphia. He followed with study at the Harlem Art Center and the American Artists School. He first gained national prominence with The Migration of the Negro series, which was shown at New York’s Downtown Gallery. The first African American to be represented by a major New York gallery, he was also the subject of a lengthy profile in Fortune magazine.

In 1946, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and his teaching career began as well. Among the places he taught were Black Mountain College, Pratt Institute, Brandeis University, the New School for Social Research, and the University of Washington in Seattle.

Printmaking provided Lawrence with the means of supporting the social causes close to his heart. From his first published lithograph in 1963, he produced a dynamic body of prints exploring universal issues of equality, unity, and hope in his distinctive, personal style of flat, overlapping shapes influenced by modern art. His work evolved into a style he termed “dynamic cubism,” that was deeply influenced by the Social Realism of American art in the 1930s. Before his death in Year 2000, Lawrence received numerous awards such as the National Medal of Arts in 1990.

Jacob Lawrence Prints, 1963-2000, A Comprehensive Survey is presented courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York.

Visit the Hudson River Museum at : http://www.hrm.org

Source: akn

The Skirball Cultural Center | Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement | 1956–1968

2009-12-17T17:02:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES - The largest exhibition in more than twenty years devoted to photography of the Civil Rights Movement opened at the Skirball Cultural Center on November 19, 2009, in its West Coast premiere. Organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968 features images that helped change the nation: they shed light on injustices prevalent in America at the time, promoted solidarity among citizens, and dramatically increased the momentum of the struggle for equal rights. Road to Freedom will remain on view at the Skirball through March 7, 2010.

The exhibition displays approximately 170 photographs by more than thirty-five photographers drawn primarily from the High’s permanent collection, which includes one of the most comprehensive holdings of civil rights–era photography in the country; many have never before been displayed to the public. Exclusively for this Southern California presentation of Road to Freedom, the Skirball has developed a new section focusing on Los Angeles civil rights history, with new loans from the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive in the Department of Special Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. Among the local events portrayed are the picketing of Kress Store in Pasadena in 1960, the march on Pershing Square on March 14, 1965, and the Watts Riots of 1965.

To continue reading the article, click HERE.

Howard Greenberg Gallery | Bruce Davidson | 1970s photography

2009-12-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK, NY.- Howard Greenberg Gallery and Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery are presenting simultaneous exhibitions of the photographs of Bruce Davidson. The exhibition at Howard Greenberg Gallery, entitled East 100th Street, The MoMA Show as Curated by John Szarkowski in 1970, is a re-creation of The Museum of Modern Art’s groundbreaking 1970 exhibition of forty-two photographs by the highly regarded Bruce Davidson. The photographs in the exhibition are the actual prints, presented in the exact manner in which they were shown at MoMA in 1970. On view through 2 January, 2010.

Davidson’s East 100th Street constitutes a significant social document. During 1967 and 1968, Davidson photographed on a New York block that in the 1950’s had the reputation of being one of the worst in the city. He was first attracted to the area because of the work of the Metro North Association, a committee of residents that were actively involved in trying to improve their neighborhood. Through this association and with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Davidson gained access to the people on the block. About this work Szarkowski wrote, “He has shown us true and specific people, photographed in these private moments of suspended action in which the complexity and ambiguity of individual lives triumph over abstraction.” In appreciation for their cooperation, Davidson gave prints of his photographs to hundreds of residents of the block. Many of these people attended the opening of the exhibition at the museum.

The exhibition at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery celebrates the fifty-year career of Bruce Davidson, with representative works from many of the artist’s well-known essays. Photographs from Time of Change (1961), Brooklyn Gang (1959), Circus (1958), Subway(1980) as well as recent images will be exhibited. For this exhibition, Davidson has produced large format prints, many for the first time. The scale and position of the new Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery provides an opportunity to re-contextualize Davidson’s work. Of his show Wolkowitz said, “Bruce Davidson has had a profound influence on contemporary photography over the last five decades. We are excited to have the opportunity to showcase this legendary photographer’s work in the heart of Chelsea’s contemporary art district and to introduce it to a much wider audience.”

Both galleries are also celebrating the Steidl publication of the three volume opus entitled Outside/Inside containing over 800 photographs that span Davidson’s entire career.

Also on exhibit at the Howard Greenberg Gallery are the recently published limited edition portfolio entitled Bruce Davidson: Central Park in Platinum. The fourteen images in the portfolio were made during many of Davidson’s explorations of the park that began in 1991 and continue to this day.

Bruce Davidson was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1933. He attended the Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University. When he completed military service in 1957 he worked as a photographer for Life Magazine and in 1958, became a member of Magnum Agency. He has had one-man exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, The Walker Art Center, The International Center of Photography, The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, The Aperture Foundation, and The Foundation Cartier-Bresson in Paris He has received numerous grants and awards including two grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Photography in 2004 and the Gold Medal Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Arts Club in 2007. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications and his prints have been acquired by many major museums worldwide. He has also directed three films.

Davidson continues to lecture, conduct workshops and produce astounding images.

Source: AKN

JOSE CENDON | Valencian Institute of Modern Art | Photography

2009-12-01T08:07:00.000-08:00

VALENCIA, SPAIN - José Cendón's photographic exhibition "Fear in the Great Lakes" emerges from the collaboration between the Fundación por la Justicia and the IVAM. It gathers photographs that show the work of this Galician photographer in psychiatric hospitals in the African Great Lakes region. José Cendón tries to show to society the consequences of war in civil population by means of these photographies. He obtained the World Press Photo 2007 Award (category of Contemporary Issues) and the Pictures of the Year Awards. The exhibition will remain opened until the 3 January, 2010 at the Valencian Institute of Modern Art.

"Fear in the Great Lakes" portrays the difficult helping circumstances in developing countries, discussing the mental illness as the theme. These snapshots depict stories of solitude and suffering, and catch our attention towards the lives lived by those patients somewhere around the world.

Photojournalism but also 'photo protest' which would never run the risk of becoming sensationalist images, but being in clearly support of the portrayed patient driving the attention of the international community to these practices.

The Great Lakes region has been deeply marked by a history of ethnic conflicts due to a large extent to the colonial heritage and the natural wealth a country situated in the heart of Africa possesses: Democratic Republic of the Congo. Western companies mostly and countries like the Rwanda of Paul Kagame stock up illegally of any kind of minerals such as gold, diamonds, cassiterite, coltan (essential for the manufacture of computers and cell phones), etc. in the former Zaire without leaving any profit to their inhabitants. On the contrary, this unmerciful practice has rekindled a conflict whose effects are 38,000 deaths a month transforming the former domain of Mobutu Sese Seko in the country with the largest number of deaths because of war.

Despite the bleak numbers the Great Lakes region shows, there are no statistics about the number of people who could be mentally affected as a consequence of those conflicts. Only a Belgian catholic congregation, "Brothers of Charity", regularly treats mental patients in Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their hospitals receive former soldiers and rebels, also men, women and children victims of the war. 'That's why I chose these institutions for the photographic work, as a metaphor of the collective insanity that has devastated this region during the last decades, also reflected in the patients' eyes. I took these photos in 2006. Nevertheless, I still can smell the foul, infected and unbreathable smell.' Cendón relates.

José Cendón is a freelance photojournalist. Nowadays he lives in Ethiopia and he has just published the book: . He has worked in Colombia, Venezuela, Israel, Palestine, Darfur and from 2005 until 2009 he has been working as a freelance photographer for the AFP (Professional Photographers Association in Spain) and other international media mainly in East Africa.

The objective of the IVAM, the Valencian Institute of Modern Art, is the investigation and diffusion of twentieth-century art. Its programme of activities offers permanent collections, temporary exhibitions, talks, courses, workshops and publications. It has two premises: the Centre Julio González, opened in 1989, and the Sala de la Muralla opened in 1991. Visit : http://www.ivam.es/

Source: AKN

JAMES BRANTLEY | Transference of Light | Sande Webster Gallery

2009-11-30T18:59:00.000-08:00

James Brantley, Steppin' Out, 58” x 33”, acrylic/canvas, 2009

The lush landscapes and surreal cityscapes presented in Transference of Light are provocative, emotive and beautiful. Brantley’s scenes blend familiarity and mystery into complex visual performances. Always presenting a stimulating point of view in his work, Brantley’s newest series is no exception. In this new body of work, he has created a strong visual language that combines impressionist representation with abstraction. This unique combination redirects our expectations of light and space, expanding the mind to experience something new. Brantley masterfully paints his signature skies, clouds and sunsets, where he uses color and light with intense restraint to evoke powerful emotional responses in the viewer. Brantley’s paintings in this show are surprising and fresh as he explores new compositional structures.

Brantley’s work is held in major public and private collections including Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Brantley’s work in The Sorgenti Collection’s exhibition, Chemistry of Color, is currently on view at the Taft Museum in Ohio and will travel to Hudson River Museum in New York and Columbia Museum in South Carolina thoughout 2010. In addition, Brantley will have a solo exhibiton at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in August 2010.

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

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TOM FEELINGS | Bloomsbury Auctions | Fine Illustrated Books

2009-11-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

New York, NY - Bloomsbury Auctions, the world’s leading auction house for rare books and works on paper, announces their annual holiday sale of original illustrations and fine illustrated books on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 2:00pm. The sale will showcase important works from the Golden Age of Illustration to the present day. It will commence with the artistic estate of award winning African American artist Tom Feelings - a native of Brooklyn. The late Tom Feelings worked as a freelance illustrator of children’s books for over thirty years.

Throughout his career, Feelings received numerous awards and honors for his outstanding portrayals of Africans and African Americans. Among the highlights of the sale is the entire collection of Feelings’ seminal 1996 work The Middle Passage ($250,000-$350,000), Caldecott Honor Book Moja Means One (1972), Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987) and Soul Looks Back in Wonder (1994).The sale will also offer the artist’s personal collection of paintings, drawings, fine prints and sculptures by such prominent African American artists as Don Nelson, Paul Goodnight, Karen Johnson, Joel Gresham, Leroy Clarke and Brian Collier. The second session will include a drawing for a book cover by Aubrey Beardsley ($9,000-$10,000), John R. Neill’s painting of Cap’n Bill as a merman ($10,000-$15,000) from L. Frank Baum’s The Sea Fairies , Willy Pogány’s watercolor for A Midsummer's Nights Dream ($12,000-$15,000) and Gustaf Tenggren’s early illustration of Trolls ($10,000-$12,000).

SOURCE

ROY DeCARAVA: 1919-2009

2009-11-11T14:02:00.000-08:00

The photographer Roy DeCarava has died. The great chronicler of 20th century African-American life, especially in New York, DeCarava had a sophisticated aesthetic and a capacious sense of life. As one example of just how sophisticated, check out this picture, which I would say is the work of a man who had thought long and hard about Leger's great painting The City. In 1996 he had a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a wonderful show that I reviewed for Time.

Like Cartier-Bresson, DeCarava had an eye for the off-kilter visual intricacies that a photograph can contain within its frame, so that even when he was working in a documentary vein, it was with an acute and unorthodox sense of spatial organization. I think one thing I said about him at the time of that MoMA show still stands:

To the question of what's personal and what's political, what's lyric and what's documentary, he offers back a teasing answer. It all is.

For more, click HERE.

The Studio Museum | 2009 Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize | GLENN LIGON

2009-11-11T13:45:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK, NY.- The Studio Museum has awarded the 2009 Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize to Glenn Ligon. Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden announced the award to over 700 supporters and friends, including George Wein, at the Museum’s Gala 2009 on October 26. Jazz impresario, musician and philanthropist George Wein established the Prize in 2006 to honor his late wife Joyce Alexander Wein, a woman whose life embodied a commitment to the power and possibilities of art and culture. Joyce was a dedicated Trustee of The Studio Museum in Harlem and was deeply involved with philanthropy and the arts throughout her life. Inspired by Joyce’s lifelong support of living artists and envisioned as an extension of the Studio Museum’s mission to support experimentation and excellence in contemporary art, the Wein Prize recognizes and honors the artistic achievements of an African-American artist who demonstrates great innovation, promise and creativity, and includes an unrestricted monetary award of $50,000. Previous recipients include Nadine Robinson (2008), Trenton Doyle Hancock (2007) and Lorna Simpson (2006).

A distinguished panel consisting of Eungie Joo, Director and Curator of Public Programs, the New Museum; Carter Foster, Curator of Drawings, the Whitney Museum of American Art; Nancy L. Lane, Trustee and Chair, Acquisition Committee, The Studio Museum in Harlem; and Naomi Beckwith, Assistant Curator, the Studio Museum, met in September to select just one winner from a competitive pool of candidates recommended by nominators nationwide.

“In receiving this prize, which is so much in the spirit of both Joyce and George’s longtime support for the arts,” said Glenn Ligon, “I realized that while I sometimes take for granted the things that I do in my studio, other people think deeply about, appreciate and cherish the work I make. I am honored.”

A New York-based conceptual artist, Ligon has a wide-ranging art practice in multiple media, including text-based painting, neon, print, installation and video. His work engages social and personal histories, memory, and the ways in which groups and individuals are represented—revealing the complexities and subtleties of social constructs of race, language, sexuality and gender.

Born in the Bronx in 1960, Ligon received a BA from Wesleyan University in 1982. In addition to Stranger, his 2001 solo exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem, he has had solo museum exhibitions at the Power House, Memphis (2008); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2000); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1996); and the Kunstverein München, Germany (2001). His work has been included in numerous national and international group shows, including Documenta XI, Kassel, Germany (2002); the Venice Biennale (1997); and the Whitney Biennial (1991, 1993).

Ligon’s work is represented in many public collections, including those of The Studio Museum in Harlem; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In addition, he has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (1997) and two National Endowment for the Arts grants (1982, 1989).

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Spoonbread Atelier Presents SIGHTscene Photography: RICKY DAY | DAFNA STEINBERG | ANDREW NASON | BILL THORNE

2009-11-11T13:43:00.000-08:00

ArtCrawl HARLEM | Re-Opening EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO

2009-10-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

ARTCRAWL HARLEMTM
Celebrates East Harlem Galleries and
the Re-opening of El Museo Del Barrio

Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009

ArtCrawl Harlem

DATE: November 7, 2009
TIME: Trolley Tour 12:30 - 4:30PM
Reception following until 6:00PM

PRICE: $55
Early Bird Special: $40 - Ends Oct. 30, 2009

SEATING IS LIMITED
BOOK IN ADVANCE AT:
WWW.ARTCRAWLHARLEM.COM
or call 800.979.3370

Galleries include:
El Museo del Barrio
My Arte Gallery
Poet's Den Gallery
MediaNoche
TAFA Studios
Taller Boricua

Imaged credit: The Virgin Mary by Cecilia Moreno Yaghoubi, My Arte Gallery

Source

Museum for African Art | THE PERVASIVE ECHO

2009-10-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

Vocals: Kathleen Berger as Jenny Lind
Master of Ceremonies: John Healarchi
Pianist: Cathy Venable

"The Pervasive Echo" is a re-examination of the 19th Century phenomenon that was Jenny Lind, a singer also known at the "Swedish Nightingale." A fragment of Lind's inaugural concert in America will be restaged under unusual circumstances at the same site where she gave this historic concert 159 years ago.

A project by South African artist Ruth Sacks
Commissioned and presented by the Museum for African Art and Performa 09

ABOUT PERFORMA 09
Performa 09 (November 1-22, 2009) is the third edition of the internationally acclaimed biennial of new visual art performance presented by Performa, a non-profit multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century.

www.performa-arts.org

Sande Webster Gallery | SAM GILLIAM | WORKS

2009-10-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

SAM GILLIAM
Works | In the main gallery
DATES > November 6-30, 2009
RECEPTION > Friday, November 13, 2009 6-8pm

Works, continues Gilliam’s process of informed improvisation that balances geometric forms with expressionist gestures. These exuberant and colorful mixed media paintings advance the inventions associated with the Washington Color School and Abstract Expressionism to new levels. Each work is carefully orchestrated like a jazz composition with internal rhythms and harmonies. Gilliam challenges and delights the viewer with a bold and diverse body of work that blurs the line between painting and sculpture. His craft has been perfected over the years to consistently create works of visual beauty, emotional impact and intellectual stimulation. Gilliam is internationally recognized in collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musee d’Art Moderne de le Ville de Paris and Tate Gallery, London. The Philadelphia Museum of Art commissioned his first outdoor public work of art and the largest draped painting of his career in 1975. Additional public and private commissions, grants, awards, exhibitions and honorary doctorates are worldwide. He is Washington’s preeminent artist.

Imaged credit: Sam Gilliam, Forever Walking, 48” x 23.5” x 7", mixed media/birch, 2009

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

KOFI ANNAN | NADAV KANDER

2009-10-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

PARIS.- Kofi Annan, Nobel Laureate and former Secretary General of the United Nations, has awarded this year’s prestigious Prix Pictet photography prize for environmental sustainability to British based photographer Nadav Kander and a photography commission to American photographer Ed Kashi at the Passage de Retz, Paris. The Prix Pictet is an annual search for photographs that communicate powerful messages of global environmental significance under a broad theme. This year that theme is ‘earth’. Nadav Kander was nominated for his series of photos, Yangtze, The Long River Series, 2006-07, documenting the rapidly changing landscape and communities of China’s Yangtze River, from its mouth to source.

The photographers were selected from a shortlist of twelve of the world’s leading photographers: Darren Almond, Christopher Anderson, Sammy Baloji, Edward Burtynsky, Andreas Gursky, Naoya Hatakeyama, Nadav Kander, Ed Kashi, Abbas Kowsari, Yao Lu, Edgar Martins and Chris Steele-Perkins.

Making the formal presentation at an awards dinner at the Passage de Retz in Paris, Kofi Annan, honorary president of the Prix Pictet said that the photographs were a compelling call for action to tackle climate change, the most serious humanitarian and environmental challenge facing the world today:

“Only weeks separate us from the decisive negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen. We are confronted with the vital need to prepare the political momentum necessary for a fair and effective post-Kyoto agreement. The images in front of us remind us of the fragility of our planet and the damage we have already done. When we see these photographs we cannot close our eyes and remain indifferent. Through our actions and voices, we must keep building the pressure to secure urgent action at Copenhagen and beyond.”

Ivan Pictet, Vice President Pictet & Cie said: "In only its second year, the Prix Pictet has established itself as one of the most important prizes in its field. While in naming Nadav Kander the Judges have chosen a very worthy winner, such was the quality of the field that any one of the twelve photographers on the Shortlist could have made it."

He added, "On behalf of the Partners of Pictet; I am delighted to announce that we have selected Ed Kashi as the photographer to fulfil Pictet's annual commission related to our charitable activities, this year in Madagascar, a country with a remarkable ecological heritage under threat and one of the poorest countries on earth."
Ed Kashi has been commissioned to visit Madagascar with the Azafady team in order to produce a series of photographs that will highlight many of the issues that Azafady are focusing on in this unique and endangered environment. An exhibition of the work made for the commission will launch the 2010 prize in the Spring 2010.

Francis Hodgson, Chair of the Judges said “The quality of the entry this year has been exceptional. It has been an honour and a pleasure to try to find a winner from among so many outstanding candidates. The shortlisted photographers set the Jury an immense problem and I am grateful to my fellow judges for their insight, expertise and good humour. The photographers’ determination to be heard is the foundation of everything that the Prix Pictet can achieve. As a result of their great skill the Prix Pictet goes from strength to strength. Although only in its second year it has clearly now found its niche as the world’s premier prize in its sector. The environmental issues which it seeks to address are vital to all of us. That of course only adds to the fascination of being involved.”

The prize is complemented by Earth, the book of the 2009 prize. Earth is published by teNeues and includes the work of the 12 shortlisted artists and others nominated for the 2009 prize. All speak of the harmful and often irreversible effects of exploiting the earth’s resources and reflect on the immediate and long-term impact of unsustainable development on communities across the globe. The full portfolios of each shortlisted artist will be shown at the Passage de Retz gallery in Paris from 23 October to 24 November. The Prix Pictet will tour to further international venues from late 2009 to early 2010. Venues confirmed for the tour include: the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, The Empty Quarter Gallery in Dubai and the Eindhoven University of Technology. The Prix Pictet Secretariat is currently reviewing proposals from several major international galleries.

Prix Pictet will collaborate with FIAC (22 - 25 October), Paris’ major international contemporary and modern art fair, and Paris Photo, the world’s leading event for photography (19 - 22 November).

Source

WEEKLY READER | To Conserve A Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities

2009-10-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

From Library Journal
The works in this companion to a traveling exhibition are drawn from collections of American art held by six of the oldest, most prestigious historically black universities (Clark Atlanta, Fisk, Hampton, Howard, North Carolina Central, and Tuskegee). The exhibition proclaims the importance of these hitherto little-known collections, which consist primarily of works by major and minor 19th- and 20th-century African American artists, as well as such well-known modernists as Hartley and O'Keeffe. The text consists of an anthology of essays that discuss the development of the exhibition, the history of the collections, and related conservation issues. Following is an alphabetically arranged biographical catalog of artists featured in the exhibition. The scholarly tone of much of the writing and the emphasis on academic issues will make this somewhat challenging for the general public, but this important book brings to light notable collections that deserve more attention. Highly recommended for academic art libraries.AEugene C. Burt, Art Inst. of Seattle Lib.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"The very existence of these collections will be a surprise to many people, and yet, until very recently, the schools served as the primary patorns for black artists denied access to the mainstream world... In other words, for every famous artist such as Elizabeth Catlett or Romare Bearden, there's a name you don't know, an artist whose work might have disappeared save for the support of these institutions." -- Catherine Fox, Atlanta Constitution, March 18, 1999

Product Description
Many of this nation's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have amassed significant collections of American art and founded galleries and museums on their campuses. These collections provide a rich resource for the study of African American art, yet many also possess a diverse array of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American art. To Conserve a Legacy documents an outstanding sampling of paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculptures owned by Clark Atlanta University, Fisk University, Hampton University, Howard University, North Carolina Central University, and Tuskegee University. This book serves as the catalog for a major exhibition and conservation project organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem, in association with the Williamstown Art Conservation Center and the six participating HBCUs. The book contains a profile of each university collection, color reproductions of many artworks included in the exhibition, biographical information on all the represented artists, and documentation of the conservation and care practices helping to preserve the art for future generations. Two major essays place the HBCU art collections and this collaborative project in a historical context and develop six themes around which the exhibition was organized: Forever Free: Emancipation Visualized; The First Americans; Training the Head, the Hand, and the Heart; The American Portrait Gallery; American Expressionism; and Modern Lives, Modern Impulses. The artists include Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Archibald Motley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Horace Pippin, P. H. Polk, Alfred Stieglitz, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Doris Ulmann, Carl Van Vechten, Thomas Waterman, James Weeks, Charles White, and many others. The book also contains forty-two entry essays by American scholars on many of the individual artworks. The exhibition was co-curated by Richard Powell, Chairman of the Art and Art History Department at Duke University, and Jock Reynolds, Director of the Yale University Art Gallery.

SOURCE

The Art of Richard Mayhew |RETROSPECTIVE | MoAD

2009-10-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

The Art of Richard Mayhew
October 10, 2009 – January 10, 2010

The Art of Richard Mayhew will represent three separate exhibitions presented concurrently at three San Francisco Bay Area institutions: the de Saisset Museum, the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), and the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz. Together, the three presentations will provide a complete retrospective exhibition for Richard Mayhew, a nationally recognized, Aptos-based painter.

The exhibition of Mayhew's work at MoAD will be the first part of a three-part chronological retrospective of the artist's career. In this exhibition, Mayhew's paintings from the late 1950's through the 1970's, consisting primarily of landscape with some figurative works will be featured. In 1957, Mayhew enjoyed his first solo exhibition as an academically trained artist and announced his unique style of presenting the natural milieu to the New York art world. During the tumultuous period of social and cultural transformation of the 1960s, Mayhew worked as an artist and an activist most notably as a founding member of Spiral, the legendary group of Black artists including Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff, organized in 1963 to address issues of civil rights and racial equality through their art.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, Mayhew establishes his career as an artist tirelessly working with a sense of spiritual depth and freedom of color, form, and space. The MoAD exhibition will explore the personal and professional foundations of Mayhew’s style as a young man of African and Native American descent coming of age in New York during the 1950s explosion of Abstract Expressionist art.

It will gather together the best of Mayhew's paintings that combine his unique style, philosophy for painting, and synthesis of artistic and social influences that set the trajectory of his artistic career.

Image credit: Richard Mayhew, Love Bush, 2000, oil on canvas, 47 x 51 inches

SOURCE

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Gives Major Gift to New Smithsonian Museum

2009-10-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed $10 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, expected to open in late 2015 on the National Mall in Washington. The purpose of the grant is to support the capital campaign of the new museum, which is raising funds for the design and construction of its building. The building, to be built on a five-acre tract adjacent to the Washington Monument, will be designed by Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup. The design, construction and exhibition installations are expected to cost about $500 million, half provided by congressional funding and the remainder raised by the museum.

“We are so pleased that the Gates Foundation has joined donors from across the country who have built a groundswell of support for this museum,” said Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the museum. “We recognize this as a vote of confidence and a genuine honor.”

The design for the National Museum of African American History and Culture submitted by Freelon Adjaye Bond / SmithGroup. Photo courtesy of Freelon Adjaye Bond / SmithGroup.“The National Museum of African American History and Culture will be a remarkable resource that will ensure that the rich stories and valuable history of African Americans will be available for all,” said Allan Golston, president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s United States Program. “The museum will be an important addition to our National Mall, and we are pleased to be joining others at this unique moment in time to support this worthy investment.”

The design and engineering team consists of four firms coming together for one of the largest architectural projects in Washington; the firms are the Freelon Group, Adjaye Associates, Davis Brody Bond and SmithGroup. The lead designer is David Adjaye; Philip G. Freelon, FAIA, will serve as design guarantor, making sure the design reflects the values and priorities of the museum and the Smithsonian. Groundbreaking for the 300,000-square-foot building is expected be in 2012.

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture was established by an Act of Congress in 2003 as the 19th museum of the Smithsonian. It is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history and culture. As part of its capital campaign, it has launched a national membership campaign. It is establishing a national identity by hosting exhibitions and educational programming in major cities across the country.

The museum’s historians and curators are building a collection—now with more than 9,000 objects—designed to illustrate the major periods of African American history, beginning with its origins in Africa and continuing through slavery, reconstruction, the civil rights era and into the 21st century. Its inaugural exhibition, “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits,” is on a 12-city national tour through 2012. Until its building is completed, the museum is offering exhibitions in its own gallery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

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AFRICAN-AMERICAN ART | NEEDS | YOU!

2009-10-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

The US art world is abuzz over the White House campaign to bring a greater diversity to its art collection—including more works by African American artists [the Obamas have been quietly notifying an array of public institutions, dealers and collectors that they are looking to borrow first-rate art of a more recent vintage to display in the White House with an emphasis on works by black, Hispanic, Asian and female artists]. Such a gesture from so influential a place has understandably had a catalytic effect—stirring conversation, raising expectations. And that’s a good thing. The move is also throwing a strong light on African American art and the artists who create it.

To read the article in its entirety, click HERE.

GRAFF AUCTION| Christies| African Girl (Injabulo) 2009

2009-10-15T18:15:00.001-07:00

LONDON—All 26 lots offered at jewelry magnate Laurence Graff’s charity auction of contemporary art at Christie’s Monday evening found buyers, but it’s unclear whether the sale — which precedes the major Frieze-week auctions — may have revealed a little hesitation on the part of bidders nonetheless, good cause and all.

Organized in part by the likes of bold-faced names Peter Brant, Uma Thurman, Hugh Grant, Naomi Campbell, and Dasha Zhukova to benefit For Africa’s Children Every Time (FACET), Graff’s recently formed, African-based initiative to aid youths and orphans, the sale realized £767,180 ($1,212,144). No commissions or buyer's premium was charged.

As the auction began under the gavel of Christie’s European president, Jussi Pylkkanen, loud strains of Shirley Bassey’s James Bond tune “Diamonds Are Forever” played in the packed King Street salesroom. And, suitably, diamonds figured in two of the evening’s lots: a pair of Khotsa Nala ("Peace Prosperity" in the Basotho language) double hoop earrings in white gold and round diamond pave donated by Graff, which went for £60,000 (est. £60–80,000), and Damien Hirst’s Porter Rhode, a 2009 oil on canvas depicting a famous Graff stone with a tiny trademark Hirst skull embedded in one of its facets, which earned £100,000 (est. £100–150,000). Hirst had donated the work.

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The evening’s top lot was also artist-donated. Raqib Shaw’s The Mild-Eyed Melancholy of the Lotus Eater (2009), in acrylic, enamel, rhinestones, and glitter paper mounted on aluminum, fetched £200,000 (est. £80–120,000). Both Graff and Shaw’s dealer, Jay Jopling of the White Cube gallery, were under-bidders for the work.

And a third artist-donated lot also made a six-figure price: Marc Quinn’s 66¾-by-102¾-inch floral still life, Crest of Mount Vinson (2009), earned £110,000 (est. £80–120,000).

The cover lot, South African artist Lionel Smit’s expressive African Girl (Injabulo) (2009), measuring 90½ by 65 inches, sold for £26,000, lapping its presale estimates of £6–8,000. (Injabulo means “happiness” in Zulu.)

But Graff, who sat in the first row, as he usually does at non-charity auctions, remained the under-bidder despite polite urgings from the auctioneer.

The auction action continues Friday at Christie’s. Stay tuned.

Source

FIRST LOOK | Obamas Select Art for The White House | Slideshow

2009-10-14T14:39:00.001-07:00

Here's a slide show we put together of some of the artworks that the Obamas have chosen for the family quarters of the White House and parts of the East and West Wings. There's not much about it that could be called controversial, unless you think that Glenn Ligon's text piece Black Like Me is somehow shocking because it engages the question of race.

For more, click HERE.

HEWITT COLLECTION | Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture

2009-10-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hewitt collection of art has home in Charlotte

The Associated Press

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After spending years traveling the country, a collection of African-American art has a permanent home in Charlotte.

The Charlotte Observer reported on its Web site Tuesday that some of the 58 works in the Hewitt Collection went on the walls of the new Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts +Culture over the weekend. The center will open later this month.

The collection was purchased in 1998 by NationsBank, the predecessor of Bank of America, and was on tour nationally until the center was ready.

It includes works by 20 African-American artists from the 20th century including Charlotte native Romare Bearden. A New York couple, John and Vivian Hewitt, put together the collection.

___

Information from: The Charlotte Observer, http://www.charlotte.com

Kurt Kauper | BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA

2009-10-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

October 03, 2009 — October 31, 2009
76 Grand Street, New York

Kurt Kauper’s portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama are not what one would expect in Presidential portraiture. Kauper is interested in imagery that seems at first to look neutral, in which visual cues do not confirm the expected ideology associated with a visual icon. Kauper wanted to try to make political paintings without didactic content.

Thinking about political art, Kauper was influenced by Glitter and Doom, the exhibition of German portraiture in the Weimar era, recently presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kauper was particularly interested in the expressively reticent and narratively mute paintings of Christian Schad, Georg Scholz, and Karl Hubbuch. Their work eschewed the formal and psychological flourishes of Expressionism and Surrealism. Instead they concentrated on cool, uninflected depictions of physical information, but remained persuasive in their ability to embody the extremes of poverty, brutality, nationalism, cultural instability and political fragmentation that defined Europe between the wars.

SOURCE

The Allentown Art Museum | A Force for Change: African American Art

2009-10-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

The Allentown Art Museum will host A Force for Change: African American Art

Allentown , Pa. – On September 13, 2009 the Allentown Art Museum will present A Force for Change: African American Art and The Julius Rosenwald Fund. This exhibition of African American art is the first to explore the legacy of The Julius Rosenwald Fund, created in 1917 by Chicago businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, who fostered black leadership through the arts, literature and scholarship. The exhibition will feature more than 60 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by over 20 of the artists who were recipients of Rosenwald fellowships during the Fund’s most active years (1928–1948), a watershed period for the advancement of African American art and culture. The exhibition will be on view in the museum’s Kress Gallery from September 13, 2009 through January 10, 2010.

The exhibition will feature more than 60 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by over 20 of the artists who were recipients of Rosenwald fellowships during the Fund’s most active years (1928–1948), a watershed period for the advancement of African American art and culture. The exhibition will be on view in the museum’s Kress Gallery from September 13, 2009 – January 10, 2010. Special exhibition admission price is $7 (plus museum admission) and also includes New Visions: Black and White Photography in Contemporary Art , a special exhibition in the Rodale Gallery.

Artists represented in the exhibition are among the foremost of their era, including Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Katherine Dunham, Jacob Lawrence, Gordon Parks, Rose Piper and Augusta Savage, among others. With support from The Rosenwald Fund, these talented and multifaceted artists explored through their work the experiences of African Americans in a time of rapid social change and modern instability. Predominate themes encompass the gulf between North and South, urban and rural, and a search for a lost black past—in some cases, the search for a black essence.

An accompanying publication connects the artists’ works to the goals and achievements of The Rosenwald Fund and also emphasizes how the foundation encouraged the black “Chicago Renaissance” of the 1930s and 1940s. This exhibition has been made possible by a generous grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art. Major support for this project has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Righteous Persons Foundation, and the Judith Rothschild Foundation.

Julius Rosenwald: Innovator in Business and Philanthropy

Talk and Book Signing / Sunday, September 13 at 1 p.m.

Peter M. Ascoli, the grandson of Julius Rosenwald and author of the biography Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South , will give personal insight into Rosenwald, a Chicago businessman who helped to foster black leadership through the arts, literature, and scholarship. Rosenwald, an unconventional philanthropist who believed firmly in the philosophy of “Give While You Live,” established The Rosenwald Fund in 1917 with the goals of supporting education for blacks in the rural South, finding ways to provide affordable health care for average Americans (Blue Cross Blue Shield was established as a result of some of the Fund’s activities), improving race relations, and providing fellowships to gifted African Americans in a variety of fields. Many of the artists who received fellowships went on to long and distinguished careers, and fine examples of their work may be seen in A Force for Change: African American Art and The Julius Rosenwald Fund . Limited quantities of Ascoli’s book will be available for purchase at the event and a book signing is scheduled to follow the talk. The talk is free to all museum visitors and will be held in the museum auditorium.

The Allentown Art Museum will feature the work of some of the finest African American artists of the mid-20th century and of modern and contemporary American photographers in the exhibitions A Force for Change: African American Art and The Julius Rosenwald Fund from September 13, 2009 - January 10, 2010 and New Visions: Black and White Photography in Contemporary Art from August 29, 2009 - January 10, 2010 . For more information visit www.allentownartmuseum.org .

SOURCE: AKN

SWANN GALLERIES | African-American Fine Art | Auction | 10.08.09

2009-09-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

At Auction: Thursday, October 8th at 2:30 pm

AFRICAN-AMERICAN FINE ART
Swann Galleries

Exhibition Hours:

Fri. Oct. 2: 10 - 6
Sat. Oct. 3: 10 - 4
Mon. Oct. 5: 10 - 6
Tue. Oct. 6: 10 - 6
Wed. Oct. 7: 10 - 6
Thu. Oct. 8: 10 - noon

CONTACT:
Nigel Freeman, Director
African-American Fine Art
Swann Auction Galleries
212-254-4710 ext. 33 nfreeman@swanngalleries.com

Swann Galleries Inc. 104 East 25th Street New York NY 10010

tel 212-254-4710 • fax 212-979-1017

www•swanngalleries•com

Images credits, clockwise from left:
Barkley L. Hendricks - Lot 78
Norman Lewis - Lot 33
James VanDerZee- Lot 13

2009 McArthur Grants Genuises includes mixed-media artist Mark Bradford and others...

2009-09-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

This year’s winners of MacArthur fellowships include, from left, Mark Bradford, a mixed-media artist; the writer Edwidge Danticat; and Theodore Zoli, a bridge engineer.

By FELICIA R. LEE
Published: September 21, 2009

A papermaker dedicated to preserving traditional Western and Japanese techniques; a scientist developing theories of global climate change; and a journalist who helps uncover details of unsolved murders from the civil rights era are among the 24 recipients of the $500,000 “genius awards,” to be announced on Tuesday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

While many of the fellows are known mostly among their peers, others — especially those in the arts — have won renown. They include Edwidge Danticat, a 40-year-old writer who has won critical acclaim with her depictions of Haitian immigrants in works like the novel “The Farming of Bones” and the memoir “Brother, I’m Dying.”

“It felt incredibly, wonderfully surreal,” Ms. Danticat said in a telephone interview from Miami. “What artists crave and need most is time. It will definitely buy some time. It’s wonderful to have a sense of security, especially in these economic times.”

This year’s MacArthur fellows range in age from 32 to 69 and are evenly divided between men and women. As in years past, most live on the East or West Coasts, but a photojournalist is based in Turkey and an infectious-disease physician in Sudan. All will receive $100,000 a year for five years, no strings attached. Since the inception of the program in 1981 and including this year’s fellows, 805 people ranging in age from 18 to 82 at the time of their selections have been named.

Besides Ms. Danticat, other winners in the arts who have received public recognition are the documentary maker James Longley, 37, who explores Middle East conflicts with portraits of communities under stress; Deborah Eisenberg, 63, a short-story writer; Mark Bradford, 47, a mixed-media artist; Camille Utterback, 39, a pioneer of interactive art installations; Heather McHugh, 61, a poet known for her syntactical twists; Rackstraw Downes, 69, a realist painter of urban landscapes; and Lynsey Addario, 35, the Turkey-based photojournalist whose work in war-torn countries has appeared in The New York Times and National Geographic.

Another journalist fellow, Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter at The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., who focuses on cold-case murders from the civil rights era, said he would use the money to help write a book on the subject. “I never in all my life expected this,” Mr. Mitchell, 50, said of his award.

While all the fellows are accomplished, the MacArthur grants are distinctive because they reward the expectation of future achievement, said Robert Gallucci, who became president of the MacArthur Foundation this summer. “We’re looking for you to continue in a creative way, without anyone looking over your shoulder,” he said.

Daniel J. Socolow, the director of the fellows program, noted that while about half the fellows are technically in the sciences, their work often touches on other areas. “We focus on the work, not the field,” he said.

As examples, Mr. Socolow cited L. Mahadevan, 44, an applied mathematician at Harvard who investigates behaviors like how flags flutter and how skin wrinkles, and Theodore Zoli, 43, a bridge engineer who works to protect transportation infrastructure in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. Timothy Barrett, 59, a papermaker at the University of Iowa who studies the impact of books on society, also has a résumé that is hard to categorize.

“For a lot of us, walking between the boundaries of disciplines and a bit off the beaten path, it’s good to get a confirmation that people think highly of your work,” said John A. Rogers, 42, a professor of material science and engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Rogers invents electronic devices that, according to the MacArthur citation, “lay the foundation for a revolution in manufacture of industrial, consumer and biocompatible technologies.”

Beth Shapiro, 33, an evolutionary biologist at Pennsylvania State University, called the MacArthur “a great opportunity to follow some research avenues that might be too risky for traditional funding sources.” Dr. Shapiro examines fossils, dirt samples, biostatistics and other clues to reconstruct what happens to certain species.

The multidisciplinary approach can be seen in the work of two fellows with law degrees, Elyn Saks, 53, and Rebecca Onie, 32. Ms. Saks, a law professor at the University of Southern California, has written of her own mental illness and fights for the rights of the mentally ill. Ms. Onie was a sophomore at Harvard when she founded Project Health, a clinic-based program that addresses the connection between poverty and ill health.

“The award is probably most significant because it ties in so powerfully with the current health care debate and conversation,” Ms. Onie said. “This gives us a platform to participate in that conversation.”

Other winners in the sciences were Maneesh Agrawala, 37, of the University of California, Berkeley, who studies how design principles can improve the effectiveness of computers’ visual displays; Esther Duflo, 36, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who analyzes the forces of poverty in South Asia and Africa; Lin He, 35, a molecular biologist, also at Berkeley, who researches cancer treatments; Peter Huybers, 35, a climate scientist at Harvard; Richard Prum, 48, an ornithologist at Yale who draws on developmental biology to examine questions about birds; Jill Seaman, 57, an infectious-disease physician working to treat infections in remote, war-torn areas; Daniel Sigman, 40, a Princeton biogeochemist investigating the ocean’s fertility and the earth’s climate; and Mary Tinetti, 58, a geriatric physician at Yale studying risk factors that contribute to fatal falls.

Source

Spanierman Gallery to Showcase "Danny Simmons-From There to Here"

2009-09-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

East Hampton, NY - Spanierman Gallery, LLC at East Hampton is pleased to announce the opening on October 8, 2009 of the exhibition, Danny Simmons: From There to Here, featuring abstract, radiantly gestural paintings created by the artist over the course of fifteen years, in which he has sought to reveal a spiritual presence beyond that of the art object’s physical properties. Drawing inspiration and motivation from the African contemporary and indigenous art and other tribal examples that he has collected over the course of many years (his collection numbers close to 2,000 items), he is motivated by a desire to think about spirituality and to seek a way to access, channel, and touch it through the creative process. Simmons views a painting as similar to a message in a bottle or a spiritual emanation that when sent out into the world encompasses a realm of experience and a life of its own beyond that of its creator.

A self-taught artist, Simmons evolved his work through studying all of the major art-historical movements. Eventually he developed a strong interest in Surrealism, encompassing the work of Miró, Dalí, and André Breton, in particular. A turning point for Simmons was his discovery of the art of the Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam (1902-1982), whose paintings combining modernist styles with those of the indigenous arts of the Americas, were admired by and exhibited in the late 1930s alongside those of his friend Picasso. Simmons was drawn to Lam’s expression of a humanism transcending the individual and to his effort to liberate the African heritage in Cuba from cultural subjugation through a conveyance of its spiritual basis. Another important influence for Simmons has been the art of the contemporary African-born painter Ouattara, who blends African and Western subjects through physically diverse materials and totemic, mythic imagery, expressing the way that personal identity today is hybrid in nature, bringing together experiences of colonial and postcolonial history.

Danny Simmons - Beyond Heavens Gate, 2008 Oil on canvas 36 x 36 inchesDeveloping from these sources, Simmons’s earlier paintings often incorporated figurative elements and specifically referenced such work as the bark paintings of the Pygmy people of the Ituri Forest of the Congo and Kente textiles from Ghana and Sudan. Gradually he developed his own visual language, using line, color and form as conduits for capturing the spiritualized essence of this work and making it his own. Rising at 5 a. m. to paint, Simmons works surrounded by silence, letting his canvases speak and evolve with their own rhythms and voices. A color is usually the starting point for Simmons. Mixing paint from powdered pigments, he will bind layers together and build up surfaces and then often peel or scrape them away, so that his method, as in a divination ritual, conveys us beyond the realm of the physical. With their dense textures, in which writhing color has a kinetic force that seems self-generated and glistening presences hover within palpable atmospheres, Simmons’s paintings function as objects of power and mystery. While there are resonances here of Picasso, Pollock, and Surrealism, Simmons pulls together disparate threads to come up with new and original results.

Simmons is the older brother of the hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons and the rapper Joseph “Reverend Run” Simmons. He is the cofounder of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which provides disadvantaged youth with access to the arts and education and promotes a diverse group of emerging artists. Simmons was also recently appointed chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts. In 2002 Simmons and his brother Russell established “Def Poetry Jam,” introducing poetry to mainstream television in a long-running series on HBO in which original poems are spoken along with performances by well-known actors and musicians. An author himself Simmons has published a novel, Three Days as the Crow Flies (2004), consisting of a fictional account of the New York art scene in the 1980s, and a book of poetry, I dreamed my people were calling but couldn’t find my way home (2007). This March, Simmons’s collection of African art along with his own paintings will be shown at Queensborough Community College in Bayside, New York, and will be the subject of a book entitled House of the Spirit accompanying the exhibition.

This is Simmons’s first exhibition at Spanierman Gallery, LLC at East Hampton.

Visit us on the web at www.spanierman-at-easthampton.com

Source

Southern Folk Art: Atlanta-based artist Corey Barksdale paints mural....

2009-09-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

Willie Cole and Hank Willis Thomas Explore Amistad Center's Extensive Collection of Art

2009-09-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

HARTFORD, CT.- A new collaborative exhibition featuring the works of Willie Cole and Hank Willis Thomas, entitled Digging Deeper, will open this fall at The Amistad Center for Art & Culture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art . Both Cole and Thomas were invited to explore The Amistad Center’s extensive collection of art, artifacts, and archives which document the African American experience and respond with new works inspired by this rich source material. The show will also include additional objects from The Amistad Center’s collection to highlight the common threads between historical characterizations of race and present-day conceptions of African American culture. Digging Deeper is on view from September 19, 2009 through April 4, 2010.

Cole and Thomas are both known for their transformation and reinterpretation of identifiable objects into works of art, many of which reference race and socio-cultural issues. Cole is best known for his use of irons and ironing boards to create images of slave ships and African masks. His work often references his family’s history as domestic workers and their roots in Africa. For Digging Deeper, he created several new pieces including a video piece entitled Remembering Mammy, which references the place of the mammy figure in historic and contemporary culture.

Willie Cole was born in New Jersey and lives and works there today. He attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts, the School of Visual Arts in New York (from which he received his B.F.A. in 1976), and the Art Students League in New York. He has won numerous awards and grants and has exhibited his art throughout the United States. His work can be found in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Thomas recently gained notoriety for his photographic works, which provide commentary on branding and consumer culture and often re-appropriate advertisements and other instantly recognizable symbols to suggest the exploitation and commoditization of African American culture. Thomas’ work for Digging Deeper includes a large scale mixed media installation entitled Greetings from the Sunny South,which is a house-like structure that incorporates more than 500 post cards from The Amistad Center's collection. The post cards depict stereotypical imagery as well as personal photographs that were adapted to post card form.

Willis Thomas' works often comment on branding and the commodification of African American culture. Best known for his photographs, Willis Thomas works in a wide range of media including film and site specific installations. He often combines historical illustrations, portraiture, and product design with references to consumer culture. The resulting works at times evoke a wry humor or a withering critique. In 2002 Willis Thomas gained wide recognition for a series called B®anded, a group of images created by digitally adding a scarred "Nike" logo to the chest and head of an African American male model. In this series, Willis Thomas highlights the complicated role of African American males in the production and consumption of their own images in the marketplace. More generally this provocative series of photographs focuses on consumer branding within America's commodity-obsessed culture, and the extent to which advertisers target racial groups and exploit the black male body for marketing and product promotion. Similar to the works of Andy Warhol and other appropriation artists of the 1980s, Willis Thomas alludes to the psychological repercussions of these representations and how these characterizations shape and define the public's perceptions about race and class.

The artists also created two cabinets of curiosity inspired by pieces from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art – where The Amistad Center is housed. One cabinet, titled “Curious objects from the demise of a peculiar institution,” holds objects from The Amistad Center’s collection including advertisements, product packages, and other objects of ephemera that seem immediately offensive to today’s viewers, but were once readily accepted by society. The other cabinet, called “Curious objects from the now yet to be understood,” includes objects contributed by both Cole and Thomas that are unproblematic today, but may be questioned by future generations. Visit : http://www.wadsworthatheneum.org/

Source: AKN

Lift Every Voice and Paint at Birmingham Museum of Art

2009-09-07T11:14:00.001-07:00

New Gallery Reflects African-American Experience and Identity

The first installation, Lift Every Voice: African-American Art from the Permanent Collection, presents paintings, prints, sculpture, and photographs spanning a period of 140 years. Works by Benny Andrews, Jacob Lawrence, Gordon Parks, Radcliffe Bailey, and Kerry James Marshall, among other artists, will be on display through January 3, 2010. Although the works in the gallery will be diverse in media and subject matter, all will reflect aspects of African-American experience and identity.

The earliest work in this first exhibition is a painting created in 1865 by Robert Scott Duncanson, titled A Dream of Italy. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and considered a master of the romantic landscape, Duncanson painted in the style of the Hudson River School. He traveled to Europe in the tradition of 19th-century American landscape painters and overcame enormous obstacles as an African-American. A circa 1912 painting by the renowned Henry Ossawa Tanner reflects his visit to North Africa, and photographs by James Van Der Zee and Prentice H. Polk document black life in New York and Alabama in the early decades of the 20th century.

Religion and the church are subjects explored in an early Romare Bearden painting and a photograph by Gordon Parks. Works by Benny Andrews, Bob Thompson, and Radcliffe Bailey refer to music in the black experience. Other aspects of experience and identity are the subjects of work by Emma Amos, Lorna Simpson, Kerry James Marshall, David Driskell, Willie Cole, and Lillian Blades.

Jacob Lawrence’s Builders No. 1 (1971) will also be shown in the first installation. The Museum brought one of the first tours of the combined Phillips Gallery (Washington, DC) and Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) collections of Lawrence’s Migration Series, a moving interpretation of the journey of African-Americans from the South to the North during the early 20th century, to Birmingham.

Contemporary works in the gallery include Willie Cole’s G. E. Mask and Scarification, with its modern day references to the marks of slavery, and Emma Amos’s Measuring Measuring and Lorna Simpson’s Tense, which address racism and cultural standards of beauty.

Photo credit: "Ornette" by Bob Thompson (American (1937-1966), oil on canvas. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Junior Patrons of the Birmingham Museum of Art.

SOURCE: ArtsBMA

Open Call for Membership: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

2009-09-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Become a
Charter Member
of the Museum!

Dear Friend,

On behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, I am very happy to announce the launch of the Charter Membership Program for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Today I am honored to invite you to formally join as a Charter Member to help build the Smithsonian Institution’s next great Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

When you become a Charter Member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, you too will make an indelible mark on our nation’s landscape by helping to create this new and long overdue Museum.

An event like this only happens once in a lifetime. It is a rare opportunity for you to become part of the Museum from the very beginning. When you join your name will be formally entered into the Museum’s prestigious Honor Roll of Charter Members.

The Honor Roll will be prominently displayed at the Museum for you and your family to see when you visit. Even if you are not able to visit in person, you will still be able to view your name online on the Museum’s website.

That’s why I urge you to use any of the links in this letter to contribute $25 or more today, and become a Charter Member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Charter Membership is a very special honor! As a member, you will receive the following:

For your gift of $25, you receive a membership card valid for a 10% discount at all Smithsonian Stores and online, our Museum newsletter, a one-year subscription to the quarterly magazine American Legacy, and e-mail updates about Museum events, programs, and exhibitions.
For your gift of $40, you also receive a beautiful Certificate of Appreciation suitable for framing that recognizes your participation as a Charter Member.
For your gift of $100, you also receive the double CD Every Tone a Testimony, a fascinating aural history of African Americans in words, music and poetry.
For your gift of $250, you also receive the book Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits.

If you are able to give $1,000 or more, I will be delighted to welcome you as a member of the Director’s Circle, a special group of leaders who are rewarded with invitations to exclusive events, behind the scenes exhibition tours, and a copy of the beautiful book The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise, documenting 90 years of African American life in the Nation’s Capital.

Our challenge now is to raise the money we need to build this powerful addition to the American cultural landscape. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2012 with the opening in 2015.

We need a total of $500 million to build the Museum. Congress has committed to provide half that amount to ensure this important initiative moves forward. And, that means we need to raise an additional $250 million in private donations from friends like you.

With your support as a Charter Member, we will ensure that the stories — the voices, if you will — of African Americans from the earliest days to the present are recorded and preserved for all time.

Together, you and I will create a wonderful new place for all Americans that, at long last, explores, celebrates and recognizes the experiences and contributions African Americans have made in shaping our national character and culture. Thank you!

All the best,

Lonnie G. Bunch
Director

P.S.	Again, thank you so much for your interest and support. Please take a moment right now to join as a Charter Member and place your name where it rightly belongs, on our Honor Roll of Charter Members.

Emory Douglas: Black Panther

2009-09-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

An Exhibition Curated by Sam Durant for the New Museum

Some of Emory Douglas’s images are nearly forty years old, but they are still as powerful as when Douglas first created them. They are dangerous pictures, and they were meant to change the world.

Emory Douglas was the Revolutionary Artist of the Black Panther Party and subsequently became its Minister of Culture, part of the national leadership. He created the overall design of the Black Panther, the Party’s weekly newspaper, and oversaw its layout and production until the Black Panthers disbanded in 1979–80. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, Douglas made countless artworks, illustrations, and cartoons, which were reproduced in the paper and distributed as prints, posters, cards, and even sculptures. All of them utilized a straightforward graphic style and a vocabulary of images that would become synonymous with the Party and the issues it fought for.

“Emory Douglas: Black Panther” includes a wide variety of Douglas’s work done while a member of the Black Panther Party. Curated by the Los Angeles artist Sam Durant, whose work often deals with political and cultural subjects in American history, the show includes approximately 165 posters, newspapers, and prints dating from 1967–76. Durant met Emory Douglas in 2002 and began working on a book of Douglas’s work, which resulted in a monograph published in 2007. Two years later Durant curated “Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which serves as a model for the exhibition at the New Museum.

Emory Douglas to Collaborate with Teens on Commissioned Community Mural in Harlem

In conjunction with the exhibition “Emory Douglas: Black Panther,” the New Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Groundswell, a community organization, will co-produce a new mural to be installed on 122nd Street and Third Avenue in Harlem, New York City. The mural, titled What We Want, What We Believe, will be a permanent public artwork— and Douglas’s first in New York City. The mural team will consist of up to fifteen teens involved with the New Museum’s G: Class student program and the Studio Museum, the majority of whom will be employed by the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, through the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). Douglas will work with the youth for two weeks, teaching the history of the larger Black Power Movement, conducting master print-making workshops, and leading discussions with youth participants. Over a period of two months, artist educators from the New Museum, the Studio Museum, and Groundswell will provide youth with tutorials on the social and political history that gave rise to the Black Panther Party and the Movement, as well as the history of printmaking and mural painting. A dedication of the finished mural is anticipated in early September 2009.

Download the press release

The presentation of “Emory Douglas: Black Panther” at the New Museum is organized by Laura Hoptman, Kraus Family Senior Curator, with Amy Mackie, Curatorial Assistant.

For more information about Emory Douglas’s recent work please contact Station 4 at
station4.co.uk

Source: New Museum

UPTOWN FRIDAYS: "Afro-Latin Style" with Geko Jones/Ethegy at The Studio Museum in Harlem

2009-08-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

WHEN: Friday, August 21, 2009 (Rain Date: August 28th)

WHERE: The Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street
(between Malcom X and Adam Clayton Powell Blvds.)

WHAT: Uptown Fridays: Afro-Latin Style with Geko and Ethergy

Uptown Fridays is $15 for members, seniors and students and $20 for the general public.

Uptown Fridays: Afro-Latin Style is produced in collaboration with Abstract Nomadic Media.

www.studiomuseum.org

The Museum of African American History Presents "From Iowa to The White House"

2009-08-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

The Museum of African American History

is pleased to announce a

Photography Exhibit and Fundraiser,

From Iowa to The White House

Photographs by Derrick Z. Jackson

August 27 - September 1, 2009

Cousen Rose Gallery

71 Circuit Avenue

Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard
10 am - 9 pm

Derrick Z. Jackson, an award winning Boston Globe columnist and photographer, will appear at the Cousen Rose Gallery to meet and greet visitors on Thursday, August 27th and Friday August 28th from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm. Jackson photographed the historic campaign of President Barack Obama from the weekend he announced his candidacy in Feburary 2007 to his first news conference in the White House as president in Feburary 2009.

This exhibit is free and open to the public.
The photos, signed by Jackson, are for sale

to benefit the Museum's youth programs.

For more information on the Museum,

www.maah.org

SOURCE: MAAH

Indianapolis Museum of Art displays Judith G. Levy's Memory Cloud

2009-08-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

INDIANAPOLIS , IN - The Indianapolis Museum of Art debuts a work by artist Judith G. Levy, commissioned for the Museum’s ongoing series of site-specific installations in its principal entry pavilion. Levy’s piece, titled Memory Cloud, will be the artist’s first major solo museum exhibition. Memory Cloud will appear as a monumental "cloud" at the center of the IMA’s Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion. The work will comprise approximately 800 translucent plastic photo viewers that hang on strands of microfilament. Visitors will be able to hold individual viewers up to the light to see an image inside. Each of the viewers will contain a unique photograph, drawn from a collection of thousands of found 35mm slide transparencies that the artist has collected throughout the Midwest. These photographs capture people posing for family snapshots, attending holiday events, working, enjoying vacations or simply observing the world around them. On view through 24 January, 2010.

“My goal is that this installation will give visitors an opportunity to create individual and collective experiences, as they are prompted by specific images they see to retrieve some of their own memories and share them with others,” Levy said. “Many of the plastic viewers will be within reach, but others will be inaccessible in order to acknowledge the elusive nature of memory. As I looked through many thousands of slides in my collection from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, I was deeply moved by our very human need to signify an experience with a photograph and by the poignancy in our efforts to try to preserve the moment.”

Judith G. Levy is an artist based in Lawrence, Kansas, who until recently lived and worked in Indianapolis and whose work has been shown at numerous venues throughout the city.

“Levy is an ambitious artist whose work is in dialogue with international trends and may already be familiar to many IMA visitors,” said Lisa Freiman, senior curator of contemporary art at the IMA. “We are pleased to showcase Levy’s project Memory Cloud, which emphasizes visitor interaction and experience, in this installation in the IMA’s entrance pavilion.”

Levy’s piece is part of the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion installation series launched in February 2007 and made possible by a $2.5 million grant from the Indianapolis-based Efroymson Fund. The works are installed on a rotating basis with a new commission from a different artist approximately every six months. Levy’s work follows an installation by New York–based artist Orly Genger, titled Whole, which was on display in the IMA’s Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion from November 21, 2008 through June 14, 2009.

www.imamuseum.org

Source: AKN

History speaks out at the newly renovated African American Museum in Philadelphia

2009-08-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

THE FLOORS have been covered with carpet depicting 1776 street maps of Philadelphia. The walls mounted with plasma TV screens and multimedia displays. The auditorium expanded and main art galleries spruced up. But the mission of the African American Museum in Philadelphia after its $4.5 million renovation is the same as it was when it opened in 1976: preserve, collect and interpret the history and stories of African-Americans in Philadelphia.

The museum's 30-plus-year history has had its ups and downs. Founded in 1976 during the bicentennial commemoration, it went through a series of financial stumbles and nearly closed in 2004. But after getting a $3 million grant from the city, $500,000 from PECO and the remainder from other donors, the museum got its first face-lift in 33 years. It shut down for three months this spring, but reopened in June with its state-of-the-art displays, interactive exhibits and plans for more improvements.

Ramona Riscoe Benson, president and CEO, estimated that the museum has presented more than 100 exhibits over the past 20 years - collections that make her proud. But she admitted the museum needed some improvements.

"People wanted to see the museum look more modern and less tired," Benson said.

The museum's new permanent exhibit, "Audacious Freedom: African Americans in Philadelphia," traces the impact of African-Americans from 1776-1876. Swelling music, narration and theatrical lighting give life to the two-dimensional timeline which explores the environment, education, religion, entrepreneurship and family traditions of the century.

"This exhibition intends to typify how the black community survived and tell the stories of self-sustaining people like James Forten, Robert Purvis, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. It really talks about the foundings and the founders of our community,"said curator Richard Watson.

"You had to be an audacious individual to stand up courageously in the kind of oppressive atmosphere that existed back then," he added.

Upstairs in Gallery Two, 10 black trailblazers caught on giant plasma TV screens seem incredibly lifelike as they idle in the darkened room, waiting to interact with visitors. Approach a screen and the figure (played by local actors and filmed at WHYY-TV's studios) delivers a monologue about his or her life, achievements and struggles. A touch-screen allows visitors to pick which topic they want the figure to tell them about.

"Some of these people are little known, if known at all," said Roscoe. "Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, the classical vocalist, or Alice of Dunk's Ferry - these are people who had very rich extraordinary stories but people probably know very little about them. We are very happy to have an opportunity to introduce them to our community and to make them come to life for visitors."

Watson has worked at the museum for 23 years, first as exhibit coordinator and now as curator. He's seen his staff shrink from six to one (himself) and the museum transform from behind the times, to cutting-edge.

Watson's favorite part of his job is localizing history. "If we borrow a history exhibition that deals with a specific tone, or civil rights issue, there's enough civil rights history in Philadelphia to augment that with local history and give relevance to a national story," he said.

He also said the museum's successes today are due to the staff's commitment and resilience. He remembers the temporary layoffs in 2004 and how everyone kept coming to work anyway, without pay.

"It was trying at that time because we didn't know if we would reach a period of recovery, but it's a testament to our small staff's big, dedicated heart. We had no alternative. We wanted to protect the museum and had faith that it would level off, and thank God it did."

Besides the new gallery exhibits, Benson said, the museum hosts receptions, film previews and educational events. It is even becoming a popular stop for family reunions.

In mid-October, the museum will undergo more renovations when it enlarges the entryway, redesigns the building's facade, and expands the gift shop. Benson said the museum hours will change to accommodate construction but that it will remain open during the work.

For the museum's curator, the sky isn't even the limit in terms of possible renovations. In the Conversations Gallery where walls, panels and even the pathway up to the exhibit are covered in history, Watson can't help but look up and say, "Why not?"

"I wish we could have done something with the ceiling," Watson said. "If we could put some monitors and things to prompt people to look up, that'd be great."

www.aampmuseum.org

SOURCE: Philly.com

On View: Hurvin Anderson-Peter's Series-Studio Museum in Harlem

2009-08-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

The Studio Museum in Harlem is proud to present the first solo U.S. museum exhibition of the work of London-based artist Hurvin Anderson. Born in 1965 in Birmingham, United Kingdom to parents of Jamaican descent, Anderson engages the formal traditions of landscape painting and abstraction. Through his paintings, he explores his own relationship to the Caribbean through depictions of complex, personal spaces and memory.

Continuing Anderson’s fascination with and exploration of places imbued with social history, meaning and memory, Hurvin Anderson: Peter’s Series 2007-2009 presents seven paintings and nine works on paper. These works re-imagine spaces created by Caribbean immigrants during the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, barbershops and other places for personal services often were opened in people’s homes and functioned as sites for both social gatherings and economic enterprise. These shop owners and their customers were among a significant wave of immigrants to the United Kingdom from the Caribbean Commonwealth countries after World War II. The barbershop was not only a place to get a haircut, but also a social space in which to meet and talk with one’s friends and neighbors.
For Anderson, the barbershop functions as a personal space loaded with imagery, and also houses intertwined political, economic and social histories. “Peter’s Series” takes as its subject one of the last-known of these spaces—a small attic that was converted into a barbershop where the artist’s father went for haircuts. Finding the space both complex and ambiguous, Anderson explored the technical exercise of recreating it many times. At first intrigued by the physical features of the attic, Anderson focused on the architecture of the room in early paintings, providing multiple perspectives of the space, like a series of portraits. Working from photographs, memory and imagination, Anderson painted and repainted the space, and even repainted a painting of it, continually reducing the interior architecture to its basic colors and simple geometric forms. 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.

Anderson studied at the Wimbledon College of Art and the Royal College of Art in the United Kingdom. His first solo gallery show was in 2003 and in 2006 he was the artist in residence at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. Earlier this year, Anderson had his first solo museum show at the Tate Britain.

Organized by Thelma Golden, Hurvin Anderson: Peter’s Series 2007-2009 continues the Studio Museum’s commitment to the presentation of new work by international artists of African descent, in solo presentations of work by artists such as David Adjaye, Meschac Gaba, Issac Julien, Chris Ofili and Yinka Shonibare, MBE, and in group exhibitions such as Africanne (2002), Africa Comics (2006) and Flow (2008).

Hurvin Anderson: Peter’s Series 2007-2009 is supported, in part, by a grant from The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.

The Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street, New York, New York 10027
tel 212.864.4500 fax 212.864.4800

SOURCE: SMH

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

2009-07-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

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

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

2009-07-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

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

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

2009-07-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Black 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

2009-07-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

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

A CAUSE FOR ART @ SANDE WEBSTER GALLERY

2009-07-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

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.

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

The National Black Arts Festival 2009 at the Hagedorn Foundation Gallery

2009-07-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

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

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

2009-07-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

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
#####

Source: Art Knowledge News

Time.com Talks with Yinka Shonibare

2009-07-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

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.

Robert Colescott: 1925-2009

2009-06-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

"I'm an old-fashioned painter. I like to make paintings that look good. If they have that quality, one day when the subject matter is completely worn out, people will stop responding in shock. They might not even know what these paintings are about. Sometimes when we look at a Renaissance painting, we don't know what it's about—people flying through the air. I want these paintings to be valued because of the way they look as paintings."

The American painter Robert Colescott has died. Make that great American painter. Colescott was an African-American who was best known for high-comic riffs on racial stereotypes. One of his best known canvases was a spoof of Emmanuel Leutze's painting ofWashington Crossing the Delaware in which George Washington Carver has been substituted for the Father of Our Country, standing manfully at the prow of a rowboat full of racial stock characters.

Exploding stereotypes in work that's both hilarious and dead serious is a strategy that's been carried forward in different ways now by Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley and Yinka Shonibare. But to think of Colescott merely as a satirist, or a kind of cartoonish political cartoonist is to miss the point entirely. What mattered about him first and last was that he was an absoluetly smashing painter, deeply versed in art history but endlessly inventive in making escape routes out of art historical traps.

After the war Colescott studied in Paris for a year with Leger and it's a safe bet that from Leger he learned something about billowing forms that lock beautifully into place while still appearing to explode out of the formation. It always seemed to me there was also a bit of German Expressionist DNA in both his distorted figures and his wild, acidic palette, which Jawlensky would have loved. And Colescott spoke about the impact on his art of a year he spent teaching in Cairo.

In 1997 Colescott became the first African-American artist to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale. Eight years earlier I had been borrowed by Time's sister publication People to profile him. In that story he said something that I think sums up his work precisely.

via TIME

KEHINDE WILEY/ BARNEY'S NEW YORK/BLACK LIGHT Book Signing

2009-06-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

powerHouse Books is pleased to announce the book signing event for

BLACK LIGHT
Kehinde Wiley

Cocktails & Nibbly bits!

Wednesday, June 24, 6–8PM

Barney's New York
Chelsea Passage, 9th Floor
660 Madison Avenue
(Madison and 61st Street)
New York, NY

RSVP: 212-450-8701

Available now at powerHouseBooks.com
powerHouse Books \| powerHouse Arena 37 Main St, Brooklyn, NY 11201 1(718)666-3049

Ann Tanksley's "Images of Zora" at Avisca Fine Art Gallery

2009-06-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

Ann Tanksley
Images of Zora
July 24 - August 14

Opening Reception:

Friday July 24, 6-10 PM

Artist Talk:

Saturday July 25, 3-6 PM

Program and Events

July 24-August 14: Exhibition on view at Avisca Fine Art Gallery, 507 Roswell Street, Marietta, GA 30060

July 24, 6-10 PM: Opening Reception at which the artist will be present. Open Bar and Hor's d'oeuvres.

July 25, 3-6 PM: Talk by the artist on the series and the printmaking processes.

GALLERY HOURS:
Thurs-Sat, 12-6 PM
Other times by appointment

For further information, contact Byrma Braham, Gallery Director (770.977.2732) (contact@aviscafineart.com).

AVISCA FINE ART GALLERY
507 Roswell Street, Marietta, GA 30060
http://www.aviscafineart.com

Phone: (770) 977-2732

via Avisca Fine Art Gallery

Amon Carter Museum Exhibits Prestige Private Collection of African-American Art

2009-06-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

FORT WORTH, TX.- The works of more than 50 African-American artists from the late 1800s to the early years of this century will be on view at the Amon Carter Museum from June 6 through August 23, 2009, in the special exhibition The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African-American Art: Works on Paper. The Kelley collection is one of the most esteemed private collections of African-American art, and the special exhibition features more than 90 works on paper by artists such as Elizabeth Catlett, William H. Johnson, Alison Saar and Charles White. Admission to all special exhibitions at the Amon Carter Museum is free.

Two significant eras are represented in the exhibition: the 1930s and 1940s, a period which saw the birth of African-American regionalism, and the 1960s and 1970s, which saw the rise of politically motivated and African-inspired themes; subjects range from racism and its related hardships to family, music and religion.

“An array of fascinating, vivid imagery makes this exhibition particularly compelling,” Myers says. “Virtually every work clearly emanates from the artists’ own powerful, personal narrative.”

The Kelleys have been collecting art since the mid-1980s, when they saw the exhibition Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800–1950 at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Realizing they did not recognize any of the artists’ names, they vowed to educate themselves about this aspect of their heritage and built a collection to advance the legacy of African-American art.

“We are delighted the Amon Carter Museum has chosen to host this exhibition,” Harmon Kelley says. “Placing our drawings and prints in the context of the museum’s rich holdings of American art is a wonderful and unique opportunity.”

Concurrent to this exhibition, the one-gallery exhibition African-American Art: Selections from the Amon Carter Museum’s Collection is on view. This exhibition showcases some of the museum’s landmark prints and drawings from the same era as those in the Kelley show. Artists featured include Charles Alston, Grafton Tyler Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, William E. Smith, Dox Thrash, Charles White and John Wilson.

The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African-American Art: Works on Paper was organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California. African-American Art: Selections from the Amon Carter Museum’s Collection was organized by the Amon Carter Museum. Visit : http://www.cartermuseum.org/

Alvin Ailey Dancer Anthony Burrell Comes Home

2009-06-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

I first witnessed the rarefied kinetic poetry of Anthony Burrell in April of 1999. A friend who was the business affairs manager of Ailey II -- Alvin Ailey's junior company in residence -- invited me to see them perform in Harlem. At a post performance reception he introduced me to Burrell, who at 18 had just joined the company, and said with the certainty of a veteran sports agent, "this kid is gonna be a star."

A year later, after graduating to Alvin Ailey proper, Burrell was soon poached by Beyoncé Knowles, and he left the company in 2003 to serve as her lead dancer, choreographer, dance captain and rehearsal director. He would go on to work with the best of the best of the hip-hop and R&B world, including Destiny's Child, Rihanna, Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige. By 2008, Burrell had firmly established himself as the Dance King of Bling. But it was the pursuit of pure artistry that led him back to Ailey. He returned in time for the company's 50th anniversary tour and to perform for President Obama at post-inaugural festivities. I linked back up with Burrell during rehearsals for this week's run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

How and why did you decide to return to Alvin Ailey?
I felt there was a void... there was something missing. When I think of dance and what makes me happy I think of Alvin Ailey. So I gave [Alvin Ailey artistic director] Miss Jamison a call and asked if she would allow me to come audition for one of the open spots. "Only come if you're really ready," she said. A year later here I am.

You and Rihanna were rumored to have been romantically involved. True?
I was Rihanna's choreographer and dance captain. We became very, very, very good friends. We just had a good working relationship. Because we were so close and hung out 24/7 I guess that was the perception. She even invited me on Christmas vacation to see her island, Barbados. Who could turn that down for two weeks?

What was it like to perform for the Obamas?
It was one of those surreal moments in life where you're overjoyed to be a part of history and to have someone so monumental be touched and inspired by something you're doing, when in all actuality you're goo-goo ga-ga over them. The whole company was on a natural high.

Tell us about your performance this Thursday. I understand you'll be featured in three works.
The program for Thursday night is "Hymn," which is one of my favorite pieces in the repertory besides "Revelations." The night before my first audition for the company, I watched "Hymn" about three times and slept with my Bible, with my Alvin Ailey poster inside, beside my bed. It's always been something close to my heart and to be able to perform it now... it's like I'm an Ailey dancer. I'm also one of the lead soloists in "Suite Otis," which is a very soulful piece featuring the music of Otis Redding. The third piece is "Revelations." I never get tired of it. To hear the audience jump to their feet and roar at the end of the "Revelations" -- there's nothing like that! It's something you cannot exchange for anything in the world, man, and I think that's one of the reasons why I'm back here at Alvin Ailey.

The 50th anniversary celebration of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre culminates with performances from June 9-14 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. For ticket information visit www.alvinailey.org.

via PM

Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits at MoAD

2009-04-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

April 4, 2009 – June 14, 2009

“Let your Motto be resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE! No opposed people have ever secured Liberty without resistance” – abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet, 1843

Garnet’s words have found their way into the title – and the essence – of the inaugural exhibition of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Presented by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits” opens at MoAD on April 4 and will be on view until June 14, 2009. The exhibition consists of 70 modern prints selected from the National Portrait Gallery’s collections highlighting 150 years of African American resistance in the U.S.

In the context of photographs, resistance took many forms. Working with a growing circle of African American intellectuals and professionals, photographers often challenged the prevailing view of blacks as intellectually and socially inferior. Dramatic images of labor leader A. Philip Randolph (1948) and activist Malcolm X (1963) spotlight those who confronted racism and social injustice head-on. Other highlights include images of boxing legend Joe Louis (c. 1935), Josef Breitenbach’s image of singer Sarah Vaughan (1950), Dan Weiner’s photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. (1956) and Irving Penn’s image of opera icon Jessye Norman (1983).

“Let Your Motto Be Resistance” was organized by the National Museum of African American History and Culture in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery and the International Center of Photography in New York and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

The exhibition, national tour and catalog were made possible by a generous grant from lead sponsor MetLife Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Council of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“Let Your Motto Be Resistance” is based on the exhibition of the same name that featured 100 original photographs, and was presented at the International Center of Photography (May 11 - Sept. 9, 2007) and the National Portrait Gallery (Oct. 9, 2007 – Mar. 2, 2008).

Kehinde Wiley "World Stage: Brazil" Exhibition Preview

2009-04-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

Book of the Week: "African-American Art (Oxford History of Art)"-SHARON F. PATTON

2009-03-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

From Publishers Weekly
Patton has written an excellent and comprehensive introduction to the historical development of African American visual art. She provides much new information on the art making of both slaves and freemen in the 18th and 19th century while later providing a broad art-historical context for black modernists. Pointing out that crafts did not necessarily precede fine art making during slavery, she examines African retentions (and Indian influences) in 18th-century black ceramics and architecture; black women and quilting; abolitionism and the rise of black landscape painters like Robert Duncanson; and sculptor Edmonia Lewis's black expatriate neoclassicism. Turning to generally better- documented 20th-century black artists, Patton arguably provides the first clear discussion of the relationship (both social and aesthetic) of black modernists to the prevailing mainstream artists and art movements of their time. As is perhaps inevitable, Patton's discussion of the contemporary art scene, while quite competent, is defined as much by the artists she fails to mention as by those she chooses to include. Well researched, scrupulously documented and organized, this lucidly written, fully illustrated book also includes numerous useful sidebars defining art movements, issues or individuals.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (June 25, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0192842137
ISBN-13: 978-0192842138
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 0.8 inches

SOURCE: Amazon

Printingmaking and African-American Art with Dr. Richard J. Powell/DUKE

2009-03-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Richard J. Powell, professor of art at Duke University, will talk about the African American experience in graphic arts on Thursday. It’s a lecture on printmaking at Paine College Candler Memorial Library at 1:30 p.m. on April 2.

Now, if you are like me and don’t know what printmaking is, well, printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting.

Each piece produced is not a copy but considered an original since it is not a reproduction of another work of art. Printmaking is not chosen only for its ability to produce multiple copies, but also for the unique qualities process creates.

Here’s a little history on Powell: He attend Morehouse and Howard University before he earned his doctorate at Yale. He’s also editor in chief of Art Bulletin.

To learn more about Richard j. Powell, visit richardjpowell.com. Or go to the lecture.

Artist of the Day: JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT/"UNTITLED"

2009-03-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

Crudely drawn figures, handwritten phrases and scientific formulae are jumbled together on a multi-colored background, forming a visual cacophony of colour and shapes. The primitive and childlike images reflect Basquiat's links with graffiti art. The painting seem to be a distillation of the New York underworld of the artist's roots, evoking its multi-ethnic, hip-hop culture and reflecting the fast-moving, chaotic reality of the city's street life through a series of disconnected images and written fragments.

Basquiat was part of a loosely associated group of so-called graffiti artists, some of whom worked in New York's subways, and indeed he started his own short-lived career by daubing graffiti on public walls. His international reputation was rapidly established and rose with meteoric speed - fuelled by the art boom of the 1980s - until his death from a drug overdose at the age of 26.

SOURCE: The Art Book

The Akron Art Museum presents the Global Artistry of Leo and Diane Dillon ~ Colorful Book Illustrations

2009-03-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

AKRON, OH - From the well loved characters of Dr. Seuss to Kadir Nelson’s historic portraits, the Akron Art Museum has a tradition of showing the work of world-renowned children’s book illustrators. This spring, the museum will continue that tradition by hosting an exhibition of work by the esteemed illustrating duo Leo and Diane Dillon, titled The Global Artistry of Leo and Diane Dillon. The exhibition will be on view March 28 – June 21, 2009 in the Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation Gallery.

The husband and wife team have made an outstanding contribution to children of all cultures, producing spectacular illustrations together since 1957. Their illustrations are incredibly distinctive and all bear the couple’s trademark clean lines, innovative color use and attention to detail, as well as a warmth which radiates through each image, filling their characters with life.

The Dillons have earned many awards throughout their prolific career including two back to back Caldecott Medals for “Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears” and “Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions,” four New York Times Best Illustrated Awards, four Boston Globe/Horn Book Awards, two Coretta Scott King Awards and the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal.

The pair both attended Parsons School for Design in New York City in 1954, and upon seeing one another’s work, even before being introduced, recognized and envied the other’s talent. Upon meeting, they formed a competitive friendship, which evolved into a relationship and then a loving marriage and successful artistic partnership.

In an interview with Karen Haber for Locus Magazine, Leo explains the development of their collaboration: “I’m constantly surprised at how our work is melding more and more as the years go on. In the beginning it was a conceived plan for us to work in a particular style we both could master. So in reality we were both working for someone else: the style.”

Diane goes on to explain the development of what they call the “third artist,” saying, “we could look at ourselves as one artist rather than two individuals, and that third artist was doing something neither one of us would do. We let it flow the way it flows when an artist is working by themselves and a color goes down that they didn’t quite expect and that affects the next colors they use, and it seems to have a life of its own.”

The couple’s works are essentially concerned with the shared experiences of the human condition – specifically with the idea that regardless of race and culture, “we have a lot in common. It is our beliefs that divide us. We have little control over what life brings us but we can change our thoughts.” Another facet of their works is a concern with artistic expression. “Art in its many forms has survived to inform us of lives long gone. Art inspires, lifts our spirits, and brings beauty to our lives. We wish to pay homage to it and to the people who created it.”

The exhibition’s display coincides with the 22nd annual Virginia Hamilton Conference at Kent State University. The conference, which will feature the Dillons as speakers, was established to provide a forum for the discussion of multicultural themes and issues in literature for youth. This exhibition is made possible by a generous gift from The Sisler McFawn Foundation.

Visit The Akron Art Museum at : http://www.akronartmuseum.org/

SOURCE: AKN

HSF " DOWN TO EARTH + NY STRINGS"

2009-03-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

APRIL 6, 2009 - 6.30 - 10.30 pm
DOWN TO EARTH + NY STRINGS two sound installations by ANDREA BELFI & STEFANO PILIA

www.harlemstudiony.org

Three Stories: Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky, and Paolo Woods at CNA

2009-03-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

DUDELANGE, LUXEMBOURG - Centre national de l'audiovisuel (CNA) presents Three Stories: Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky, and Paolo Woods, on view through May 31, 2009. About Africa, presented by two African photographers of the post-Apartheid generation and a Dutch-Canadian photographer, seeking to give visibility to the inhabitants and to the complexity and nuances of African culture; such is the topic of the present exhibition. These young authors do not wish to exercise judgement upon the situations unfolding before their camera lenses, but instead, by revealing marginal events, to convey a sense of the values, conditions, objects and incidents of everyday life, while keeping a political eye on the changing world around them. Wishing to keep their distance from traditional photojournalism, setting little store by the rules of the mass media and refusing to apply the clichés with which the image of Africa has been imbued since the colonial period and the era of Apartheid, they are inspired of the photographic approach of artists like David Goldblatt, Roger Ballen and Guy Tillim.

Pieter Hugo - The Hyena and Other Men The Hyena and Other Men is the story of men, who in the company of hyenas, pythons and baboons, earn their living doing street performances for the crowd and selling traditional medicine. Captivated by a picture he came across in a South-African newspaper depicting men with their hyenas in the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, Pieter Hugo decided to go and meet them. A few weeks later, accompanied by a local reporter, they hooked up with them in shanty town on the outskirts of Abuja, to take the road with this troupe and to get to know their fascinating world a little better. Bit by bit, he got to meet the animal merchants, with their traditional rites and strove to photograph their daily round. He quickly realized that what really interested him in this subject was the hybrid crossover of the urban and the wild and the paradoxical, often very affectionate, at other times cruel and brutal, relationship that the merchants have with their animals. Via a series of extraordinary portraits of this marginal existence taken over the space of two years (2005 to 2007), we discover a world characterized by complex relationships and interdependencies, a world which wavers between traditions, myths and modernity, domination and submission.

Mikhael Subotzky - Beaufort West Beaufort West is a small town in the middle of the desert, intersected by the national N1 highway, lying halfway between Cape Town and Johannesburg, and crossed every year by millions of cars. Here, as in most South African rural towns, agricultural activity has fallen off considerably from one generation to the next, causing an exodus to the big cities. Beaufort West is a desolate place. Unemployment is rife and it has a very high crime rate. Those who remain, or who return here, have been rejected everywhere else. Yet as one leaves the town centre one happens upon an amazing sight: a prison, standing in the middle of a roundabout.

Mikhael Subotzky, having already carried out several photographic projects in South African prisons, decided to spend time in Beaufort West to sketch a portrait of the town. Between 2006 and 2008, he would return there regularly, to live with the people, going out to meet them in the company of Major, a very popular guy about town. He took a particular interest in problems of marginalization, incarceration and disillusion to create an inventory of the social reality of South Africa in the post-Apartheid world.

Paolo Woods - Chinafrica In 2007, Paolo Woods set out to recount the adventure of the conquest of the African continent by the Chinese. In search of coveted raw materials - copper, uranium and timber - Beijing has sent forth its adventurous companies and entrepreneurs.

500.000 Chinese emigrants to Africa are striving to make their fortune, in a continent which the West deemed worthy of receiving only humanitarian aide. Some are managing large conglomerates, while others are selling bargain items along the roadsides of some of the world's poorest countries. Accompanied by the journalist Serge Michel, Paolo Woods criss-crossed the entire continent to encounter these two very different worlds, from the threatened forests of the Congo to the karaoke bars of Nigeria, along the pipelines of Sudan and the railroads of Angola, from the top ministries in the capitals to the devastated countryside.

Chinafrica also tells us of a bygone era. The Chinese have little in common with the former colonisers - they build roads, hospitals and schools. For the Africans, it's a new phenomenon which makes no claims of democracy or transparency, a law beyond dictatorial regimes. The images in Chinafrica are a rare and surprising portrait of an unsuspected here and now, as well as a condensed portrait of a globalized world.

Rather than scouring the continent camera in hand, seizing the moment, as it were, these artists forge personal relationships with their models, working over long periods of time, focusing on calm and "secondary" situations, switching between documentary and artistic photography while having recourse to portrait and a degree of mise en scène. The exhibition was curated by Marguy Conzémius and Michèle Walerich.

Exhibition Now Open - Printed & Manuscript African Americana

2009-02-23T18:39:00.000-08:00

Swann Galleries

Printed & Manuscript
African Americana

Thursday, February 26, 2009 - 10:30 AM & 2:30 PM

Lot 78 - A Remarkable Collection
(Slavery & Abolition - Reconstruction) Collection of 20 Autograph
Signatures of the African-American politicians elected to Congress
1868-1897
Estimate $30,000-40,000

Gallery Exhibition Hours for this sale:

10 AM - 4 PM - Saturday, February 21
10 AM - 6 PM - Monday, February 23
10 AM - 6 PM - Tuesday, February 24
10 AM - 6 PM - Wednesday, February 25

SAVE THE DATE: El Anatsui-Process and Project

2009-02-23T18:31:00.000-08:00

OPENING--El Anatsui: Process and Project

March 25, 2009
7pm - 9pm

BRIC Rotunda Gallery, 33 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, NY

This spring, the Museum for African Art and BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn will present thirty years of never-before-seen drawings and sketches by the acclaimed sculptor El Anatsui.

The exhibition El Anatsui: Process and Project features Anatsui’s drawings for major sculptures in ceramic and wood, archival photographs of the artist at work in his studio in Nigeria, as well as the artist's sketchbooks, many of which show early designs that presage his famous liquor-bottle top “cloth” sculptures and large scale in situ installations. At the center of the exhibition is the monumental installation Peak Project (1999). Originally shown in the windows of Selfridges & Co., the London department store, Peak Project is composed of numerous freestanding “peaks” made from thousands of glittering tin-can lids.

El Anatsui: Process and Project, curated by MfAA Assistant Curator Lisa Binder, is a preview for El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You About Africa, a major retrospective of the artist’s career and an inaugural show for the MfAA’s new building on Museum Mile, set to open in 2010.

www.africanart.org

Beyond the Frame: African American Comic Book Artists

2009-02-16T17:40:00.001-08:00

January 24, 2009 – April 26, 2009
Beyond the Frame: African American Comic Book Artists
Temporary Exhibition Gallery
Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts

Beyond the Frame: African American Comic Book Artists presents the work of African American artists working in commercial, self-published, and web-based comic book and graphic novel genres. The exhibition will reflect a cross-section of artists, some well established, others emerging and active in new areas of publication, such as Internet-based web comic art.

Beyond the Frame explores the styles and subject matter of artists working in the commercial sector, as well as those whose work emphasizes culturally relevant themes of racial identity, family life, hip-hop culture, and African American history. Organized by the FIA with assistance from veteran comic book industry artist Robert Stull, and John Jennings, Professor of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the exhibition will be presented in coordination with educational and art school programming at the Flint Institute of Arts.

Stacey Robinson
American, 1972
Abraham
digital print, 2008
Courtesy of the Artist

SOURCE: FIA

National Black Fine Arts Show- 13 Turns Out To Be A Lucky Number

2009-02-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

Last night, the 13th Annual National Black Fine Art Show (NBFAS) held its Gala Preview to benefit The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. The show presents exceptional work by African, African-American and Caribbean artists.

On what was a bone chilling evening, I left Harlem not for the show’s usual destination The Puck Building, (where the show had been held for the last several years) but for 7 West 34th Street which faces The Empire State Building near Herald Square and Macy’s. The building is centrally located in midtown Manhattan and easily accessible from all parts of the city.

This year marks the 13th year of this show and proved to be the best thus far. The show offers original artwork by African, African American and Caribbean artists from every genre. Splashes of ethnic color are splattered on canvases for display; think fiery reds, oranges and yellow to cool greens, blues and grays. Forty exhibitors hailing from the United States, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean displayed works from Edward Bannister, Henry Tanner, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett (who was also present on a nationally televised NAACP Image Awards ceremony last night), Dianne Smith, Danny Simmons, Tafa and many others. Original works from various media including paintings, photography, mixed media, sculpture, and limited edition prints are all for sale to the highest bidder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Your Calendar....EMNA ZGHAL

2009-02-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

Please join us for the opening reception of:

EMNA ZGHAL
Feb. 19th, 2009
5-7pm on the 15th Floor of Ogilvy New York
Worldwide Plaza 309 West 49th Street
RSVP to OgilvyRSVP@gmail.com

Museum for African Art

www.africanart.org

Swann Galleries - Tuesday 2/17/09 - African-American Fine Art Auction

2009-02-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

African-American Fine Art

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 1:30 PM

Gallery Exhibition Hours for this sale continue:

10 AM - 6 PM - Monday, February 16
10 AM - Noon - Tuesday, February 17
(Auction at 1:30 PM)

Swann Galleries Inc. | 104 East 25th St. | New York | NY | 10010 | 212-254-4710

Click here to view the online sale catalogue.

Click here to purchase the catalogue for this and other fine Swann Galleries auctions. Catalogues may also be purchased at the galleries or by calling 212-254-4710 ext. 0.

Visit Swann Galleries Home Page for gallery schedule and catalogues online.

CPS Gallery at Black Fine Art Show 2009

2009-02-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

Join Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery at the Black Fine Art Show, Feb 13-15, in Booth C2 at 7 West 34th Street, across from the Empire State Building.

Meet our amazingly talented artists that include Aleathia Brown, Carolyn Cole, Diane Davis, Al Johnson, Betty Blayton-Taylor, Emmett Wigglesworth, and Brian "Strong-Wind" Williams.

Kalup Linzy "Comedy, Tragedy, Sketches of Me

2009-02-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 12 thru Friday, February 13, 2009
Time: 8 pm
Admission: $10
Curated by Rashida Bumbray

Place: The Kitchen 512 West 19th Street New York, NY 10011 (Between 10th and 11th Avenues on the southside of the street) 212-255-5793 x 11 www.thekitchen.org

Museum of African American Music, Art and Culture names Paula Roberts as Executive Director

2009-02-09T18:57:00.001-08:00

The $33 million Museum of African American Music, Art & Culture coming to downtown Nashville has named Paula Roberts as executive director.

Plans for the 55,000-square-foot museum along the historic Jefferson Street corridor were unveiled in April. It will pay tribute to the contributions of African Americans in arts and music nationally and internationally.

Roberts is former director of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center at Tennessee State University. She will be responsible for strategic and operational planning, governance, financial managment and overall advancement of the museum as it prepares to begin construction.

“Paula’s leadership and expertise represents a significant step forward ... as we move toward breaking ground,” chairman Kevin Lavender says. “With the museum, we strive to provide an enriching national resource that further solidifies Nashville as one of America’s top historic and cultural centers. We are delighted that Paula will help to lead us toward this result.”

The museum will serve as the nation’s most significant digital repository of African American music.

“I am honored to join the leadership team of this iconic museum,” Roberts says. “The emphasis of music allows the (museum) to stand as a staple in this city’s rich and diverse heritage.”

Roberts was recently named commissioner on the Metro Nashville Arts Commission and serves on the boards of the Salvation Army, Nashville Opera Association and Young Leaders Council.

SOURCE: BizJournals

NMAAH opens 'The Scurlock Studio' Photography Exhibition: Jan. 30-Nov. 15, 2009

2009-02-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON, DC -Nearly a century’s worth of photographs 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, opens Jan. 30 and will be 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.

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 will be displayed with cameras and other photographic equipment from the Scurlock Studio.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture was established in 2003 by an Act of Congress, making it the 19th Smithsonian Institution museum. It is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history and culture.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. For more information, visit www.nmaahc.si.edu or call (202) 633-1000, (202) 633-5285 (TTY).

SOURCE: AKN

Ruud van Empel solos at STUX Gallery, Chelsea (NYC)

2009-02-09T18:38:00.000-08:00

New York City - STUX Gallery is pleased to present Dutch artist Ruud van Empel’s third solo exhibition at STUX Gallery. Presented alongside the artist’s thoroughly unique photographs, for the first time, Ruud van Empel will further push the reality of his illusions by including cast bronze sculptural renditions of some of his iconic characters, allowing viewers a voyeuristic glimpse into a fully realized 3-dimensional world of new and seemingly improbable settings filled with evocatively harmless childlike characters. On exhibiton through March 7th. 2009.

For further information please contact the gallery at : Andrea-at-stuxgallery.com or visit www.stuxgallery.com/

SOURCE: AKN

Too Black for B.E.T.-Jayson Scott Musson

2009-02-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

Here it is! Episodes I and II of Jayson Scott Musson of Plastic Little’s Too Black for B.E.T. finally collected into a single volume. 36 black and white posters that teem with art magic! It’s as if Musson made a pact with Satan, and Satan, taking a liking to Mr. Musson, gave the artist dark powers which no mortal should possess. Gasp in terror as you descend into a world of perversion, dereliction, depression, apathy of the highest order, chemical addiction, Harry Potter, racism, sexism, whatever it is when you hate the shit out of children, shoegaze music, and the general moral relativism Mr. Musson has used throughout his life to justify acting however the fuck he wants to act because he’s a grown ass man. Somehow art is born out of this combination of self-obsession and an ego so great that it borders on the realm of Tolkien-esque fantasy.

Too Black for B.E.T.: Episodes I and II sports an elegant matte finish that’s so elegant that you’ll need Mr. Belvedere, Jeffery from the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, and Batman’s butler Alfred to each give you a high class hand job (or satisfactory fingerlingus) in order to feel worthy of touching the book. Oh, the book is really funny too. And there’s also stuff about politics in it too. But mostly, Too Black for B.E.T. is just some crazy donkey sex type shit. The best toilet reading passing as art since the Bible! Too Black for B.E.T. can also be purchased at JaysonMusson.com/Shop.

SOURCE: Jayson Musson

DECODING IDENTITY: I DO IT FOR MY PEOPLE-MoAD

2009-02-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

January 23-March 8, 2009

Forging a personal identity gives rise to a unique voice that transcends stereotypical barriers. The works of 20 diverse artists challenge cultural and ethnic prejudices and question issues of religion, sexuality, race, and gender. Ultimately, Decoding Identity heals the dynamic tension between individual and collective identities.

Includes works by: Lorraine Bonner, Ed and Linda Calhoun, Christopher Carter, Lalla Essaydi, John Yoyogi Fortes, Chaz Guest, David Huffman, Clint Imboden, Stephanie Anne Johnson, Annette Lawrence, Kelly Marshall, Wardell Milan, Ramekon O'Arwisters, Adrienne Pao, Jefferson Pinder, Dario Posada, Danny Ramirez, Manuel Rios, Blue Wade, and David Yun.

Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission Street (at Third)
San Francisco, California 94105
phone: 415.358.7200
fax: 415.358.7252

www.moadsf.org

"The Brand New Heavies" minus N'Dea Davenport plus Mickalene Thomas

2009-02-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present "The Brand New Heavies", curated by Mickalene Thomas. The exhibition will be on view from January 23 - March 8, 2009 and will include three dynamic contemporary artists innovatively working in fundamental mediums. Lauren Kelley, Deana Lawson, and Jessica Ann Peavy present recent work conveying salient sentiments through means that are at once, sensual, opulent, and psychological.

The works of all three artists offer staged scenes, referencing theater and performance, while incorporating embellished caricatures through collaboration with and/or commentary on their varied subjects. Lauren Kelley's videos present meticulous, comprehensive, fictitious narratives in overwhelming detail. In "Get Bones from 88 Jones", Barbie dolls, an array of plastic sweets, sculpted elements and malleable, inconstant clay form an accelerated narrative satiated with the metaphorical implementation of materials and imagery. Kelley's whimsy informs the happenings in the love life of a librarian with detail similar in degree to the sculpture crafted by Liza Lou. The environments in Kelley's work also resonate with the staged frames in the work of photographer, Deana Lawson. In "Anna" the everyday patterned couch blending with the drapes in the background is disrupted by the sequins adorning and condition of the thin, staid figure. The minimalist palette and compositions of Lawson's work bring to mind paintings by Barkley Hendricks and the videos of Jessica Ann Peavy. Peavy's "A Conversation Piece" also references intimate relationships as "Get Bones from 88 Jones", though in this case the sensual narratives are articulated through tales of food-making and consumption as two videos play simultaneously and transverse from each other. Similar to some work of Chantal Akerman, Peavy's piece incorporates pauses and static frames, giving the viewer an opportunity to contemplate the different ways in which women communicate which each other. One character speaks candidly about food likes and dislikes, while the other vivaciously recalls an anecdote of food preparation, nourishment, intimacy and rejection.

Lauren Kelley received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently participating in the Core Residency Program in Houston. Deana Lawson, who has been included in several exhibitions over the past year, was recently interviewed by Tova Carlin for Time Out New York, and received a MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Jessica Ann Peavy graduated with an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Recent recipient of NYSCA, Peavy's work is currently on view at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and will be included in an upcoming show at the Bronx River Arts Center.

This exhibition is Mickalene Thomas's curatorial debut. She graduated with an MFA from Yale University and currently shows with Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York, Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, and Susanne Vielmetter Projects in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in various catalogues and reviewed in Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Post, NY Arts, Modern Painters, Essence, Whitewall, Frieze, and Artforum.

SOURCE: CBG

Kalup Linzy/The Kitchen-Forthcoming Documentary "Comedy, Tragedy, Sketches of Me"

2009-02-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

Kalup Linzy is known for his absurdly humorous drag-performance-based videos in which he repurposes the narrative style of daytime television soaps in order to explore complicated relationships between race, class, gender, sexuality, and popular culture. For these evenings, he debuts a new solo, theatrical work exploring related themes, in which he plays piano, sings, and is accompanied by video projections that feature his ever-expanding cast of riotous characters.

This event, curated by Rashida Bumbray, runs Thursday, February 12 thru Friday, February 13 at 8pm.

Tickets are $10.

For more information, visit The Kitchen and filled your plate up with succulent delights!

SOURCE: The Kitchen

Black Fine Art Show: February 13-15, 2009

2009-02-04T20:20:00.001-08:00

The 13th Annual National Black Fine Art Show (NBFAS) will take place February 13-15, with a Gala Preview on the evening of Thursday, February 12 to benefit The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. The NBFAS will present exceptional work by African, African-American and Caribbean artists.

This international art fair features a broad array of artwork by black artists. NBFAS offers an opportunity to view and choose from a huge range of work in this undervalued field. Josh Wainwright, founder and producer/manager of the National Black Fine Art Show, commented “The show presents visitors an exceptional opportunity to purchase phenomenal original art from a genre which is experiencing great growth in monetary value, even in this difficult economic time.” From masters such as Edward Bannister, Robert Duncanson, and Henry Tanner to contemporary artists like Carrie Mae Weems, Cheryl Warrick and Danny Simmons, attendees will find a diverse selection for every taste. All artwork will be for sale. (For out of town visitors, check the website for a special rate on hotel accommodations.)

40 exhibitors from around the world will participate, including: Peg Alston Fine Arts, Sragow Gallery, and G.R. N’Namdi Gallery. Harlem’s Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery will also be participating. (For a full list of participating galleries, click here.)

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the preview benefit’s recipient, is a national research library in Harlem devoted to collecting, preserving and providing access to resources documenting the history and experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world. From its founding in 1925 during the Harlem Renaissance, the Schomburg has amassed vast collections of over 21 million items. It was designated one of The Research Libraries of the New York Public Library in 1972.

Preview:
Thursday, February 12
Patron Reception & Preview, $150, 5:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Preview Party, $100, 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
To order Preview tickets, click here.

Dates & Hours:
Friday, February 13, noon - 8:00 pm
Saturday, February 14, 11:00 am - 8:00 pm
Sunday, February 15, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

Location:
7 West 34th Street at Fifth Avenue, New York City

Admission:
Daily Admission $15 (includes show catalog), Students $10 (with valid ID), 2-day pass $25.

www.blackfineartshow.com

February First Target Saturday: Get On The Black List!

2009-02-04T13:44:00.000-08:00

Saturday, February 7:
Get On the Black List
FREE admission from 5 to 11 p.m.

at The Brooklyn Museum

5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. Music
The Rubin Pavillion, 1st Floor

Listen to San Juan Hill’s “Afro Latin Soul”, a cross Atlantic blend of funk, soul, Latino Caribeño, jazz, Brazilian, hip-hop, and house served with sultry lyrics in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.

6:00 p.m.–7:30 p.m. Film and Discussion
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Forum, 4th Floor

Aisha Cousins screens and discusses the documentary about her public art project, Diva Dutch, then demonstrates the art of braiding. Afterwards, watch a demonstration of Diva Dutch double dutch. The project explores how culture connects Black women across time and space. Free tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 5 p.m.

6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m. Hands-On Art
Education Division, 1st Floor

Visitors are invited to describe themselves and their loved ones through portraiture and writing. Free timed tickets (300) available at the Visitor Center at 5:30 p.m.

6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. Dance Conversation
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor

Acclaimed choreographer and director Bill T. Jones speaks with noted film critic Elvis Mitchell, interviewer of The Black List Project, about his artistic journey as his company celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary. The free-flowing conversation will touch on what it’s like to create two works simultaneously: Fela! A New Musical about Nigerian firebrand musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti, creator of Afrobeat, and a multidisciplinary work for his dance company to mark this year’s bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Free tickets available at the Visitor Center at 5 p.m.

7:00 p.m. Young Voices Gallery Talk
Meet at the entrance to the Contemporary Art Galleries, 4th Floor

Student Guides give a talk highlighting the works of Black artists in the Museum’s contemporary art collection.

8:00 p.m. African Art Gallery Talk
Meet at the entrance to the Arts of Africa, 1st Floor

Kevin Dumouchelle, Interim Assistant Curator, Africa/Pacific Islands, gives a talk in the Arts of Africa galleries. Free tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 7 p.m. Talk will also be Sign-Language interpreted.

8:30 p.m. Film
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor

See the award-winning film Lackawanna Blues (George Wolfe, 2005, 95 min., PG-13), starring S. Epatha Merkerson and Mos Def, that sets the coming-of-age stories of a woman, a family, and a community to the Blues of the 1960s. Free tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 7 p.m.

9:00 p.m. Target First Saturdays Book Club
1st Floor

Pamela Newkirk, a professor of journalism at New York University and a co-recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1992, discusses her newly published book, Letters from Black America.

9:00 p.m.–11:00 p.m. Dance Party
Beaux-Arts Court, 3rd Floor

DJs Spinna and Rich Medina make the selections for a James Brown vs. Fela Kuti tribute to two giants of funk music.

Be sure to check the Brooklyn Museums website for more events that evening by clicking here.

SOURCE: BM

The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End-MET MUSEUM, NYC

2009-02-03T17:28:00.000-08:00

Dazzling textile traditions have constituted an important form of aesthetic expression throughout Africa’s history and cultural landscape. Textiles have long been a focal point of the vast continental trading networks that carried material culture and technological innovations across regional centers and linked Africa to the outside world. Leading contemporary artists reflecting on Africa’s distinctive cultural heritage and its relationship to the world at large have drawn upon the imagery of textiles in sculpture, painting, photography, installation art, video, and other media.

This exhibition illustrates the stunningly diverse classical textile genres created by artists in West Africa through some of their earliest documented and finest works. Highlights of the Metropolitan’s own holdings will be presented along with some twenty works that entered The British Museum’s collection by the early twentieth century. Selected works will represent inventive variations on major themes of the influential classical genres. The exhibition will relate these genres to contemporary art forms by affording an appreciation of the cultural context and visual language of these traditions and exploring their synergy and resonance in works by eight living artists.

The publication The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press will accompany this exhibition.

The exhibition is made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Fred and Rita Richman, and The Ceil & Michael E. Pulitzer Foundation, Inc.

It was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the British Museum, London.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
Information: 212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org

Deliverance: The Art of Ben Jones 1970-2008

2009-02-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

Main Galleries September 18, 2008 – February 21, 2009

This major retrospective of the work of Ben Jones features a complete survey of the artist's work, dating from the mid 1970s through his most recent paintings. "Deliverance" explores various aspects of the artist's body of work, and delves further into its close relationship to religions of the African diaspora. Many of the artist's key works are in the exhibition, including the iconic Black Face and Arm Unit, from 1971 (State Museum, Trenton). Organized by independent curator Ed Spriggs, whose relationship with Mr. Jones dates back to the early 1970s, when he was director at the Studio Museum in Harlem and Ben Jones was exhibiting his work there, this survey is an unprecedented examination of this important American artist's work.

With essays by Edward Spriggs, Kellie Jones, Ph.D., Associate Professor of African American, African Diaspora, and Latin American art at Columbia University; and a dialogue with the artist by Alejandro Anreus, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art History and Latin American Studies at William Paterson University, this publication promises to be a substantial and scholarly catalogue that will serve as a document of, and create access to, Ben Jones's significant body of work. "Deliverance" is made possible by a lead grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional funding provided by The Joan Mitchell Foundation, Inc., the Lucius and Eva Eastman Fund, The Puffin Foundation, Ltd., and other generous individual donors. This program was selected by the New Jersey Council on the Arts as part of the American Masterpieces Series in New Jersey. American Masterpieces is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Credit:
Ben Jones
Black Face & Arm Unit, 1971
Acrylic on life-size plaster casts, 30 pieces, life size (arms/masks)
Collection of the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey

SOURCE: Jersey City Museum

Odili Donald Odita: THIRD SPACE at Institute of Contemporary Art, UPenn

2009-02-03T15:22:00.000-08:00

September 5, 2008 - December 6, 2009

Odili Donald Odita's large-scale, abstract wall paintings operate at the intersection of Western modernism and African culture. Borrowing strategies of destabilized perception from Op art—a tradition condemned by formalist criticism—and adding narrative and multicultural inflection, Odita both embraces and critiques the modernist tradition. His vast, animated expanses of fractured, rhythmic planes, equally informed by television test band patterns, African textiles, post-colonial discourse, sensory overload, and digital technology, speak to a contemporary experience of dislocation and decenteredness. This is the 16th commission in ICA's Ramp Project Series.

Third Space, a symphony of irregularly shaped, fractured planes in 115 shades of housepaint, takes full advantage of the Ramp’s soaring, sloping architecture.

Odita (b. 1966, Enugu, Nigeria; lives Philadelphia and New York) has been developing his rhythmic abstract paintings since 1999, when he was engaged, with critic Olu Oguibe and curator Okwui Enwezor, in bringing African and diasporic art practices to critical attention through the journal NKA.

Born in Nigeria and raised in Ohio, Odili Donald Odita (b. 1966, Enugu, Nigeria; lives Philadelphia and New York) has been developing this body of work for 10 years, at which time he was engaged, along with critic Olu Oguibe and curator Okwui Enwezor, in bringing African and diasporic art practices to critical attention through the publication NKA, Journal of Contemporary African Art.

Odita has had numerous exhibitions around the world, and was included in the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. He has had solo exhibitions at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Jack Shaiman Gallery, New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio. His work will also be on view this fall at The Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town and this spring at the Center for Contemporary Art in Turin. He is an Associate Professor of Fine Art at Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

This exhibition is organized by Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow Stamatina Gregory, and will be accompanied by a brochure publication.

SOURCE: ica

Provocative Visions: Race and Identity—Selections from the Permanent Collection-MET MUSEUM, NYC

2009-02-02T19:20:00.007-08:00

"Provocative Visions" features thirteen works by seven contemporary African-American artists: Chakaia Booker, Willie Cole, Glenn Ligon, Whitfield Lovell, Alison Saar, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker. The exhibition examines the ways these artists challenge accepted perceptions and assumptions about race, gender, and identity, and interject their own cultural heritage and personal histories into their imagery. It presents them at mid-career with signature images. All of the pieces were acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art within a year or two of their creation, and most are being displayed for the first time in this installation.

The seven artists in this exhibition were born in the 1950s or 1960s and were directly affected by the Civil Rights Movement, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution. When they emerged on the art scene in the 1970s and 1980s these issues were strongly in the forefront of their art. Although they have chosen subjects that are primarily figurative, their meanings go beyond traditional likeness. Rather the figures and faces in these sculptures, drawings, and prints are emblems of societal concerns and metaphors for human experience and collective memory.

Of particular note are the artists' innovative use of materials and techniques, including photography. Chakaia Booker�s tire sculpture is one of a number of pieces that utilizes found objects; others include Willie Cole�s bicycle and shoe constructions, and Whitfield Lovell�s wall tableau with metal implements. Multi-panel prints by Lorna Simpson are based on old photographs and printed on felt boards, while Glenn Ligon�s compositions feature written texts, almost exclusively. The female protagonists in Alison Saar�s and Kara Walker�s works comment on the role of women in society. Questions about the past and the present, particularly as they relate to African Americans, resonate in these exhilarating, but disturbing works.

www.metmuseum.org

The ART of K'Naan-"Dreamer

2009-02-02T19:20:00.005-08:00

Somali-born poet, rapper and musican. Ladies and Gentleman, I present K'naan. For more information on this artist, go to:

www.myspace.com/knaanmusic

Jamel Shabazz in Conversation with Thomas Allen Harris at The Powerhouse Arena

2009-01-26T19:24:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The powerHouse Arena is pleased to invite you to a Black History Month talk

Jamel Shabazz in Conversation

with Thomas Allen Harris

Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 6–9PM
The powerHouse Arena,

37 Main Street, Brooklyn

For more information: (718) 666-3049

RSVP: HYPERLINK "mailto:rsvp@powerhousearena.com" rsvp@powerhousearena.com

The powerHouse Arena invites you to a discussion with Jamel Shabazz, author of Back in the Days, A Time Before Crack, Last Sunday in June, and Seconds of My Life, published by powerHouse Books, and Thomas Allen Harris, producer, director, and co-writer of Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, a documentary that explores the work of African-American photographers. Shabazz will present his photography and Harris will screen the trailer for Through a Lens Darkly, to illustrate the influence of African American photographers.

About Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People:

Award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and artist, Thomas Allen Harris, is currently in production with his fourth feature-length documentary, Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People. Co-produced by noted scholar, curator, and author, Deborah Willis PhD, Through A Lens Darkly, is the first documentary and multimedia outreach project that explores how African-American communities have used the medium of photography to construct political, aesthetic, and cultural representations of themselves and their world. The Through A Lens Darkly project is part of a new generation of interactive media that expands the boundaries of participatory filmmaking by using both traditional documentary and multimedia platforms to engage television and internet audiences in new, creative, and transformative ways.

In Finnegan’s Wake, James Joyce wrote: “History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” Through A Lens Darkly is about contemporary African-American artists probing the recesses of the American nightmare by interrogating images of stories suppressed, forgotten, and lost; and how they engage African-American history in their work. Artists include Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, Lyle Ashton Harris, Hank Willis Thomas, Coco Fusco, Anthony Barboza, Clarissa Sligh, Jamel Shabazz, Deborah Willis, and many more.

The film will interweave contemporary artists discussing their inspirations and creative process with the

stories of pioneering black men and women photographers, whose images helped reclaim the collective self worth and humanity of African Americans. Moving between the realms of the present and the past, Through A Lens Darkly will reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, as a pointed African-American perspective on American history, and as a particularized aesthetic vision. Our hope is that Through A Lens Darkly will provoke contemporary audiences to think simultaneously about the progressive and repressive capabilities of photography. For instance: how do we begin to think critically about images of black people, of black history, and about images in general? How much are our ideas about race supported and constructed by photographic images that we believe to be true or that we assume to be true without understanding how constructed they are? In the words of one artist, “This is an issue of visual literacy. An image is never just an image. It has a background, a context, a history.” Through A Lens Darkly is an active experience, where audiences are engaged as collaborative partners rather than passive viewers.

The Through A Lens Darkly production team is joining forces with a diverse contingent of media arts and social justice organizations from across North America to empower families of the African Diaspora

to uncover, preserve, and share photographic images that authentically depict our lives – past, present, and future. All are welcome to visit http://www.throughalensdarkly.tv to learn how they can participate in this innovative multimedia project

About Jamel Shabazz:

Jamel Shabazz’s work has appeared in publications such as The Source, Vibe, Trace, British Elle, Jalouse, Dune, GQ, and French Vogue. In addition, his photographs have been exhibited in Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes, and Rage at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, at Xhibiton Transition in Chicago, and at Trace Magazine: True Signs in Paris. Shabazz is a Teaching Artist with the Rush Arts Foundation, where he mentors at-risk youth. He is a philanthropist who supports organizations like The Harlem Art Project, The Queens Council on the Arts, and Project Hope. He has published four books with powerHouse: Back in the Days, A Time Before Crack, Last Sunday in June, and Seconds of My Life (2001, 2005, 2003, and 2007). Shabazz was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 1960.

About Thomas Allen Harris:

Thomas Allen Harris, producer, director, co-writer, was born in the Bronx and raised in New York City and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. His documentary films, installations, and experimental videos have been featured in venues across the international landscape on television, at festivals, museums and galleries. His most recent film, Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela, premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, won Best Documentary at the Pan-African and the Santa Cruz Film Festivals, the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the Roxbury Film Festival, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award before being broadcast nationally on the POV documentary series as well as Swedish and New Zealand Television. His previous film, É Minha Cara/That’s My Face (2001), premiered at the Toronto, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals and won seven international awards, including the Best Documentary at Outfest and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury of Christian Churches at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival. The film was broadcast on the Sundance Channel as well as on ARTE, the CBC, and YLE. Mr. Harris is a recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the United States Artist Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, Rockefeller Fellowship, as well as CPB/PBS and Sundance Directors Fellowships. Harris was a tenured Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego and a Visiting Professor of Film and New Media at Sarah Lawrence College. He worked as a staff producer for WNET/Thirteen, public television in New York, prior to founding Chimpanzee Productions, Inc., a company dedicated to producing unique visual experiences to illuminate the human condition and the search for identity, family and spirituality. Chimpanzee Productions is currently developing several new projects, including the features, Tears From Lagos and On the DL, as well as Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People.

For more information, please contact Viviana Morizet, viviana@powerhousebooks.com

37 Main Street Brooklyn, NY 11201-1021 tel 718 666 3049 email arena@powerhousebooks.com

SOURCE: Powerhouse Books

Ogden Museum of Southern Art shows Folk Artist Clementine Hunter

2009-01-24T18:42:00.000-08:00

NEW ORLEANS, LA - The Ogden Museum of Southern Art announces the acquisition of three major works by the famed Louisiana painter Clementine Hunter (1886 –1988). The first addition is entitled “Flowing River” – one of the largest known works by the artist. The second is a rare piece, “Cotton to Gin and Baptism,” that is painted back to back. Of note, on the work’s reverse side, “Baptism” features a seldom seen palette of pinks, vivid yellows, red and white. Local collectors Dr. Jerry and Carolyn Fortino donated the paintings to the museum.

“The other Clementine Hunter works at this scale and significance are installed at African House at Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches, La.,” says Ogden Director J. Richard Gruber. “This donation by Dr. Jerry and Carolyn Fortino makes these important works accessible to a larger public for the first time.”

These unknown works are an important addition to the museum’s holdings of Hunter’s work, which also includes "A Funeral at Isle Brevelle" from the Roger Houston Ogden Collection. She became the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art and was invited to the White House by President Jimmy Carter.

Dr. Fortino vividly remembers acquiring Flowing River at an auction 39 years ago. “We bought it in 1970,” recalls Fortino. “We drove to Natchitoches and bought an olive jar, a quilt and a giant 8-foot-tall Clementine Hunter. During the auction I raised my hand up and didn’t put it down.”

Hunter was born at Hidden Hill plantation, near Cloutierville, Louisiana. She lived and worked in Northwest Louisiana at Melrose Plantation, which had become an artist colony directed by Francois Mignon. Using paints left behind by visiting artists, Hunter began to create her own work in 1939. Her paintings were often small, usually no larger than 18” by 24”. Her subject was the daily life on Melrose Plantation. Hunter utilized all sorts of discarded items as a canvas, including bottles, cardboard and gourds. Visit the Ogden Museum of Southern Art at : http://www.ogdenmuseum.org/

Source: AKN

Obama “Hope” portrait goes to Washington

2009-01-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

The red and blue stencilled portrait of President Elect Obama by street artist Shepard Fairey, which became the central image of the election campaign, has been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC for its collection. It is the first portrait of the new president to enter the national collection, part of the Smithsonian Institute.

The original work was given to the museum by the Washington-based lobbyists and collectors Heather and Tony Podesta, whose brother John is the co-chairman of Obama’s administration transition team. It was given in memory of Mr Podesta’s late mother, who was a supporter of Obama since his 2004 campaign to win a Senate seat.

“This work is an emblem of a significant election, as well as a new presidency,” said Martin Sullivan, director of the National Portrait Gallery in a press statement. A spokeswoman for the National Portrait Gallery says the work will be on view in the museum’s first floor gallery in time for Obama’s inauguration on 20 January.

SOURCE: The Art Newspaper