Saturday, April 30, 2016
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess @ kaufmann repetto [MILANO/EUROPE]
I. Untitled, 2016 [ceramic, glaze; 16 x 11 cm]
II. Untitled, 2016 [ceramic, glaze; 22.5 x 12 cm]
III. Untitled, 2016 [4 ceramic tiles, glaze; 30 x 30 cm]
IV. Installation view
LINK
II. Untitled, 2016 [ceramic, glaze; 22.5 x 12 cm]
III. Untitled, 2016 [4 ceramic tiles, glaze; 30 x 30 cm]
IV. Installation view
LINK
Sarah Gail Armstrong
I. Racial Disparity and the Plight of the African American Female, 2016
II. Sarah Gail Armstrong @ Smart Objects [poetry reading for 100% FUCKBOY FREE on the rooftop of Smart Objects (LA); curated by Brandon Drew Holmes]
LINK
II. Sarah Gail Armstrong @ Smart Objects [poetry reading for 100% FUCKBOY FREE on the rooftop of Smart Objects (LA); curated by Brandon Drew Holmes]
LINK
'Imitation of Life: Melodrama and Race in the 21st Century' @ HOME [MANCHESTER/EUROPE]
Part of: HOME 1st Birthday Weekend , Our new April – September season
Sat 30 Apr 2016 – Sun 3 Jul 2016
Imitation of Life looks at the performance of racial politics in an evolving, digital world. Oral histories and verbatim storytelling drawn from theatre and cinema, painting and sculpture, all confront the fluid, changing politics of representation and race.
Inspired by the 1959 film of the same name (by legendary German-American director Douglas Sirk), this exhibition, like the film, is filled with subtext and double meaning. Imitation of Life considers the context of racial politics over the last fifteen years in the US and Europe, focusing on artists whose work uses (melo)drama as a form of social, political and institutional critique. The group exhibition includes a new commission from Sophia Al-Maria and work from Larry Achiampong, Michael Armitage, Kevin Beasley, Jordan Casteel, Loulou Cherinet, Loretta Fahrenholz, Lauren Halsey, Tony Lewis, Jayson Musson, Jacolby Satterwhite and Martine Syms.
Alongside the exhibition, we will be publishing a new book, Fear Eats the Soul, featuring responses by artists and writers to the exhibition and its themes.
LINK
Sat 30 Apr 2016 – Sun 3 Jul 2016
Imitation of Life looks at the performance of racial politics in an evolving, digital world. Oral histories and verbatim storytelling drawn from theatre and cinema, painting and sculpture, all confront the fluid, changing politics of representation and race.
Inspired by the 1959 film of the same name (by legendary German-American director Douglas Sirk), this exhibition, like the film, is filled with subtext and double meaning. Imitation of Life considers the context of racial politics over the last fifteen years in the US and Europe, focusing on artists whose work uses (melo)drama as a form of social, political and institutional critique. The group exhibition includes a new commission from Sophia Al-Maria and work from Larry Achiampong, Michael Armitage, Kevin Beasley, Jordan Casteel, Loulou Cherinet, Loretta Fahrenholz, Lauren Halsey, Tony Lewis, Jayson Musson, Jacolby Satterwhite and Martine Syms.
Alongside the exhibition, we will be publishing a new book, Fear Eats the Soul, featuring responses by artists and writers to the exhibition and its themes.
LINK
'Snap' @ Compliance Division [PORTLAND/USA]
home school is happy to announce snap, our first exhibition! Join us 5/5 from 6-9pm at compliance division in Portland, OR.
snap
***
Tactile ting: applying honey and oatmeal bits on the face while reading ugly youtube comments like journal entries.
it looks so awful on the face but makes an interesting texture
my art walk has been stages of mourning. shock, surprise, anger, acceptance, healing.
i think im moving toward healing. honey masks are my rituals.
the times i chant visions with friends on the phone or immerse myself with the idea and feelings of existing in another form
- Mx Angel
***
featuring:
Mx Angel
Hamishi Farah
Jamondria Marnice Harris
Porpentine Charity Heartscape
Devin Kenny
Elizabeth Mputu
Saige Rowe
Victoria Anne Reis and Adam Benjamin Smith
manuel arturo abreu
***
Mx Angel is a saint, cyborg, digital nomad, in search for new terrains and new bodies to inhabit. Fond of clowns and Angels. Won't be here when the rapture happens..
Hamishi Farah (b. 1991, mid flight) is an artist based in Melbourne. This dog has recently shown work in Brussels, Basel, and New York. He is undertaking a two-year studio residency at Gertrude Contemporary (Melbourne) and is represented by Minerva (Sydney).
Jamondria Marnice Harris is a poet & artist living in Portland, OR. She uses words, sounds, wires, instruments, textiles & whatever is at hand to engage blackness, desire, decolonization, fairy tales, femme supremacy, & body horror. She is a VONA Workshop Fellow & board member at In Other Words feminist bookstore, among other things.
Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a new media artist, writer, game designer, and trash woman. Her games and curation contributed to the popularity of accessible text art software Twine. She's won the XYZZY and Indiecade awards, had her work displayed at EMP Museum and The Museum of the Moving Image, been profiled by the NYTimes, commissioned by Vice, the New Inquiry, and Rhizome, and she is a 2016 Creative Capital Emerging Fields awardee.
Devin Kenny is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, musician, and independent curator. Hailing from the south side of Chicago, he relocated to New York to begin his studies at Cooper Union. He has since continued his practice through the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, SOMA Mexico, and collaborations with DADDY, pooool, Studio Workout, Temporary Agency and various art and music venues in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere including: Recess, Het Roode Bioscoop, REDCAT, MoMa PS1, Freak City, and Santos Party House. He received his MFA in 2013 from the New Genres department at UCLA and is an alum of the Whitney Independent Study Program.
Elizabeth Mputu.
1. Ball of tension. hyperbolic.
online is not a safe space but u can map out your own terrain bravely
free education thru forum
adult play time in cyber utopias as established by “clicks and enters”
“clicks and enters” as activism/actionism, activating n stimulating alternate realities n possibilities
healing centers. online presence as a mechanism 4 centering political identity n drawing energy towards the preservation of ur kind. groundation. seeding.
bleeding out wen ur net worth’s oversharing/ networks overbearing/demanding
still us in a machine, queering normative standards of existing.
refreshing pages. refreshing. new ages.
refreshing. options. selectivity
new windows. open.new perspectives.
I’m liz n I’m a #thot online
Saige Rowe (b. 1993) lives and works out of Conyers, GA, and received her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. She has shown most recently at Nasty Cowboy (Atlanta, GA) and Horses (Milwaukee, WI).
manuel arturo abreu (b. 1991, Santo Domingo) is a poet and artist from the Bronx. They work with text, ephemeral sculpture, and photography.
Victoria Anne Reis (b. 1982) and Adam Benjamin Smith (b. 1983) have been friends since 1997. This is their first material collaboration. They previously worked together on Wall Sit-off (2008) and other low-audience performances.
event photo image: Saige Rowe
LINK
snap
***
Tactile ting: applying honey and oatmeal bits on the face while reading ugly youtube comments like journal entries.
it looks so awful on the face but makes an interesting texture
my art walk has been stages of mourning. shock, surprise, anger, acceptance, healing.
i think im moving toward healing. honey masks are my rituals.
the times i chant visions with friends on the phone or immerse myself with the idea and feelings of existing in another form
- Mx Angel
***
featuring:
Mx Angel
Hamishi Farah
Jamondria Marnice Harris
Porpentine Charity Heartscape
Devin Kenny
Elizabeth Mputu
Saige Rowe
Victoria Anne Reis and Adam Benjamin Smith
manuel arturo abreu
***
Mx Angel is a saint, cyborg, digital nomad, in search for new terrains and new bodies to inhabit. Fond of clowns and Angels. Won't be here when the rapture happens..
Hamishi Farah (b. 1991, mid flight) is an artist based in Melbourne. This dog has recently shown work in Brussels, Basel, and New York. He is undertaking a two-year studio residency at Gertrude Contemporary (Melbourne) and is represented by Minerva (Sydney).
Jamondria Marnice Harris is a poet & artist living in Portland, OR. She uses words, sounds, wires, instruments, textiles & whatever is at hand to engage blackness, desire, decolonization, fairy tales, femme supremacy, & body horror. She is a VONA Workshop Fellow & board member at In Other Words feminist bookstore, among other things.
Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a new media artist, writer, game designer, and trash woman. Her games and curation contributed to the popularity of accessible text art software Twine. She's won the XYZZY and Indiecade awards, had her work displayed at EMP Museum and The Museum of the Moving Image, been profiled by the NYTimes, commissioned by Vice, the New Inquiry, and Rhizome, and she is a 2016 Creative Capital Emerging Fields awardee.
Devin Kenny is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, musician, and independent curator. Hailing from the south side of Chicago, he relocated to New York to begin his studies at Cooper Union. He has since continued his practice through the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, SOMA Mexico, and collaborations with DADDY, pooool, Studio Workout, Temporary Agency and various art and music venues in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere including: Recess, Het Roode Bioscoop, REDCAT, MoMa PS1, Freak City, and Santos Party House. He received his MFA in 2013 from the New Genres department at UCLA and is an alum of the Whitney Independent Study Program.
Elizabeth Mputu.
1. Ball of tension. hyperbolic.
online is not a safe space but u can map out your own terrain bravely
free education thru forum
adult play time in cyber utopias as established by “clicks and enters”
“clicks and enters” as activism/actionism, activating n stimulating alternate realities n possibilities
healing centers. online presence as a mechanism 4 centering political identity n drawing energy towards the preservation of ur kind. groundation. seeding.
bleeding out wen ur net worth’s oversharing/ networks overbearing/demanding
still us in a machine, queering normative standards of existing.
refreshing pages. refreshing. new ages.
refreshing. options. selectivity
new windows. open.new perspectives.
I’m liz n I’m a #thot online
Saige Rowe (b. 1993) lives and works out of Conyers, GA, and received her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. She has shown most recently at Nasty Cowboy (Atlanta, GA) and Horses (Milwaukee, WI).
manuel arturo abreu (b. 1991, Santo Domingo) is a poet and artist from the Bronx. They work with text, ephemeral sculpture, and photography.
Victoria Anne Reis (b. 1982) and Adam Benjamin Smith (b. 1983) have been friends since 1997. This is their first material collaboration. They previously worked together on Wall Sit-off (2008) and other low-audience performances.
event photo image: Saige Rowe
LINK
'#POWERVHS'
from RAFiA:"Hey, y'all! I come to you with a brand new project I curated and edited called #POWERVHS, a 60-minute compilation of 9 women & femme video artists (the majority of which are black & brown). The tape features heavy hitters such as Sondra Perry, Nandi Loaf, & Elizabeth Mputu and takes you on a roller coaster ride of psychedelic self confidence, vulnerability, tranquility, and truth.
Here’s the list of artists on the comp!
Hattie Ball
Michelle Marie Charles
Angelina Fernández
Reagan Holiday
María José
Nandi Loaf
Elizabeth Mputu
Sondra Perry
(and me, of course!)
The compilation was originally set to be produced on VHS tapes and released early May to be sold but the man in charge of production pulled on the deal because I had been giving him “attitude”, “ignored technical specifications”, and because I suggested that the contributors be compensated for their labor. Not to be deterred I’m releasing the 720x480 vid for the FREE on Vimeo & for $20 on special edition DVD, a modern medium that will soon be just as obsolete as a VHS cassette.
What we need from you is support in the form of funding to cover the cost of production! A printer that can print directly on discs, a stack of DVDs, cases, and an external disc drive comes up to about $500! Whatever donations are left over from those costs goes directly to the artists 😊
Any donation of $15 or more will get you a complementary DVD that includes exclusive BONUS FOOTAGE that you won’t find on the online version
Hattie Ball
Michelle Marie Charles
Angelina Fernández
Reagan Holiday
María José
Nandi Loaf
Elizabeth Mputu
Sondra Perry
(and me, of course!)
The compilation was originally set to be produced on VHS tapes and released early May to be sold but the man in charge of production pulled on the deal because I had been giving him “attitude”, “ignored technical specifications”, and because I suggested that the contributors be compensated for their labor. Not to be deterred I’m releasing the 720x480 vid for the FREE on Vimeo & for $20 on special edition DVD, a modern medium that will soon be just as obsolete as a VHS cassette.
What we need from you is support in the form of funding to cover the cost of production! A printer that can print directly on discs, a stack of DVDs, cases, and an external disc drive comes up to about $500! Whatever donations are left over from those costs goes directly to the artists 😊
Any donation of $15 or more will get you a complementary DVD that includes exclusive BONUS FOOTAGE that you won’t find on the online version
Donations can be sent to my PayPalvia: https://www.paypal.me/RafiasWorld
I’ll be taking donations until MAY 31st
So please pass this around, reblog, & share to your peoples. Support the craft and the artists behind it and enjoy this trailer to get a taste of what you’re in for!
Thanks for listening ❤"
'Kaas' Diamond Stingily [NYC/USA]
“I have seen all the dead seasons,” Kaa said at last, “and the great trees and the old elephants, and the rocks that were bare and sharp-pointed ere the moss grew. Art thou still alive..." – Kaa, The Jungle Book
It is a lonely life to be a snake. To be ancient, forever in your prime. A mentor and a friend becomes the enemy when one cannot speak. The mentor, the friend still cast their skin in order to grow knowing there is beauty in struggles.
Was Medusa a Gorgon or a misunderstood woman? There would be hesitation to say she was evil if the listener could hear her speak.
The Jungle Book is a misinterpreted childhood favorite. The fear of snakes is possibly the fear of oneself. Afraid of seduction, the confidence and being hypnotised by the charmer.
“They taunted me, they called me Medusa,” said the girl, “They told me I looked like the comedic snake, the Disney version. I didn’t know he was powerful, majestic, to be respected. And like him I learned who I was and now I know who I am.”
~
Queer Thoughts is honored to present Kaas, the first New York solo exhibition by Diamond Stingily.
Diamond Stingily is an artist and writer based in New York. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Egg, Chicago; A1, Chicago; and in a two-person exhibition (with Martine Syms) at Project Row Houses in Houston. Group exhibitions include Arcadia Missa, London; Queer Thoughts, New York and Nicaragua; Ramiken Crucible, Los Angeles, and a forthcoming project with Publishing House in Gstaad, Switzerland. Her writing has been performed and exhibited at Signal Gallery, Brooklyn and Chin's Push, Los Angeles, among others, and a publication of her writing was released through Dominica, Los Angeles. This is her first solo exhibition with the gallery.
6 May at 19:00-22:00
LINK
It is a lonely life to be a snake. To be ancient, forever in your prime. A mentor and a friend becomes the enemy when one cannot speak. The mentor, the friend still cast their skin in order to grow knowing there is beauty in struggles.
Was Medusa a Gorgon or a misunderstood woman? There would be hesitation to say she was evil if the listener could hear her speak.
The Jungle Book is a misinterpreted childhood favorite. The fear of snakes is possibly the fear of oneself. Afraid of seduction, the confidence and being hypnotised by the charmer.
“They taunted me, they called me Medusa,” said the girl, “They told me I looked like the comedic snake, the Disney version. I didn’t know he was powerful, majestic, to be respected. And like him I learned who I was and now I know who I am.”
~
Queer Thoughts is honored to present Kaas, the first New York solo exhibition by Diamond Stingily.
Diamond Stingily is an artist and writer based in New York. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Egg, Chicago; A1, Chicago; and in a two-person exhibition (with Martine Syms) at Project Row Houses in Houston. Group exhibitions include Arcadia Missa, London; Queer Thoughts, New York and Nicaragua; Ramiken Crucible, Los Angeles, and a forthcoming project with Publishing House in Gstaad, Switzerland. Her writing has been performed and exhibited at Signal Gallery, Brooklyn and Chin's Push, Los Angeles, among others, and a publication of her writing was released through Dominica, Los Angeles. This is her first solo exhibition with the gallery.
6 May at 19:00-22:00
LINK
‘The Function’ Tschabalala Self @ T293 [ROME/EUROPE]
T293 is pleased to present The Function, first exhibition at the gallery and in Italy of American artist Tschabalala Self. Coming as a result of a residency in Naples, the exhibition consists of a new series of paintings and sculptures that explore the physical and psychological dynamics of interactions within a social space. The formal and conceptual inspiration for this show is a house party, with Self as the host.
All the works in the show depict characters and couples, as they move, dance, talk and stare at other attendees at a fête. The sense of intimacy, and simultaneously of isolation these works induce inevitably create a dizzying effect for the viewer, who cannot help but be caught in the emotions provoked by the various depicted scenes.
Pieces of old paintings, raw canvas, fabrics, prints and paper sheets are assembled, stretched, painted and drawn over, so to give form to a kaleidoscope of human emotions and behaviours. The different patterns composing these oeuvres create dynamic figures that look at the viewer with the same intensity with which they ask to be seen. Their identity is not treated by Self as an already fixed form waiting to be represented upon the canvas; rather, it manifests itself as a process of constant negotiation among different gazes: that of the artist, that of the viewer, and that of all the other characters who participate to this relational game.
Tschabalala Self practice has always been characterised by the usage of various sewing and binding techniques that work in conjunction with drawn and painted elements. The recourse to traditional craft skills and repetitive gestures helps the artist investigate how the body (and particularly the Black female body) functions as a social and political symbol. The bodies (and personas) she portrays are fractured assemblages that seem to internalise in their forms a confluence of cultural projections, while asserting their own self-defined identity. It is precisely the destructuring of traditional ways of representation of the body that allows the artist to focus more on how people look, rather than on what is there to be seen. Hers is the eye that sees how other eyes see, before exploring through her process-based practice how this representational game affects people’s social and political life.
Playing inventively with both abstraction and figuration, Tschabalala Self creates a new series of works that still investigate such politics of the gaze, both towards the gendered and the racialised body. Nevertheless, in The Function the artist proposes a more personal and nostalgic perspective upon this matter. She takes the ideas and expectations associated with a house party -as a free, enthusiastic and unfettered moment within everyone’s social life- in order to shine light on the complex net of political relations that deeply inform the way we shape the contemporary iconography of the body.
[installation shots]
LINK
All the works in the show depict characters and couples, as they move, dance, talk and stare at other attendees at a fête. The sense of intimacy, and simultaneously of isolation these works induce inevitably create a dizzying effect for the viewer, who cannot help but be caught in the emotions provoked by the various depicted scenes.
Pieces of old paintings, raw canvas, fabrics, prints and paper sheets are assembled, stretched, painted and drawn over, so to give form to a kaleidoscope of human emotions and behaviours. The different patterns composing these oeuvres create dynamic figures that look at the viewer with the same intensity with which they ask to be seen. Their identity is not treated by Self as an already fixed form waiting to be represented upon the canvas; rather, it manifests itself as a process of constant negotiation among different gazes: that of the artist, that of the viewer, and that of all the other characters who participate to this relational game.
Tschabalala Self practice has always been characterised by the usage of various sewing and binding techniques that work in conjunction with drawn and painted elements. The recourse to traditional craft skills and repetitive gestures helps the artist investigate how the body (and particularly the Black female body) functions as a social and political symbol. The bodies (and personas) she portrays are fractured assemblages that seem to internalise in their forms a confluence of cultural projections, while asserting their own self-defined identity. It is precisely the destructuring of traditional ways of representation of the body that allows the artist to focus more on how people look, rather than on what is there to be seen. Hers is the eye that sees how other eyes see, before exploring through her process-based practice how this representational game affects people’s social and political life.
Playing inventively with both abstraction and figuration, Tschabalala Self creates a new series of works that still investigate such politics of the gaze, both towards the gendered and the racialised body. Nevertheless, in The Function the artist proposes a more personal and nostalgic perspective upon this matter. She takes the ideas and expectations associated with a house party -as a free, enthusiastic and unfettered moment within everyone’s social life- in order to shine light on the complex net of political relations that deeply inform the way we shape the contemporary iconography of the body.
[installation shots]
LINK
Monday, April 25, 2016
'Bouquet Complex' Alex Ito & Masami Kubo @ Kimberly Klark [NYC/USA]
I. Masami Kubo, Figure 02: A History of Two Chairs, 2016 [wood construction, paint, projected image and narration]
II., III., & IV. Alex Ito, Hideyuki/Sueko (9066), 2016 [led lights, acrylic, digital print on vinyl, aluminum, wood and paint]
II., III., & IV. Alex Ito, Hideyuki/Sueko (9066), 2016 [led lights, acrylic, digital print on vinyl, aluminum, wood and paint]
'netherrrrrr' Sondra Perry @ Good Weather [NORTH LITTLE ROCK/USA]
What is nothingness? What is thingliness? What is blackness? What’s the relationship between blackness, thingliness, nothingness and the (de/re)generative operations of…a life in common?
ϟ
Do you remember where we are? No way where we are is here. Where we were, where we are, is what we meant by mu…the void of our subjectivity.
ϟ
In the hold, blackness and imagination, in and as consent not to be a single being, are (more and less than) one.
ϟ
The night holds fantasy, not identity.
Fred Moten (2013)
You can’t see it. And yet it’s right here/there. The netherrrrrr. And so it is in the netherrrr and to recognize the netherrrrrrrrr, to socially disrupt the netherrr, Sondra Perry has dismantled the finite and covered it in the expansiveness of nothingness (the “void of our subjectivity”). A chroma key blue, a deep digital space, an elusive space, a virtual space that is an understudy for blackness. A space which is radical. A space interrogating black invisibility in American society through abstraction and potentiality. A space rattling a foundational condition: the maintaining/protection of that which we call white supremacy—a power relationship which has an oppressive spine. And the netherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr pressed towards contradiction in this codified space, finds passage as the natural state, fugitivity and imagination in the nothingness. This strategic shiftiness dodges commodification, avoiding labels, categories, and naming. No measure. No pyramids. No silos. No spectrums. No binaries. Nothing. Only a recognition of positionality and in presenting this work, a generosity and shared vulnerability, that may transubstantiate into a shared revolution.
LINK
ϟ
Do you remember where we are? No way where we are is here. Where we were, where we are, is what we meant by mu…the void of our subjectivity.
ϟ
In the hold, blackness and imagination, in and as consent not to be a single being, are (more and less than) one.
ϟ
The night holds fantasy, not identity.
Fred Moten (2013)
You can’t see it. And yet it’s right here/there. The netherrrrrr. And so it is in the netherrrr and to recognize the netherrrrrrrrr, to socially disrupt the netherrr, Sondra Perry has dismantled the finite and covered it in the expansiveness of nothingness (the “void of our subjectivity”). A chroma key blue, a deep digital space, an elusive space, a virtual space that is an understudy for blackness. A space which is radical. A space interrogating black invisibility in American society through abstraction and potentiality. A space rattling a foundational condition: the maintaining/protection of that which we call white supremacy—a power relationship which has an oppressive spine. And the netherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr pressed towards contradiction in this codified space, finds passage as the natural state, fugitivity and imagination in the nothingness. This strategic shiftiness dodges commodification, avoiding labels, categories, and naming. No measure. No pyramids. No silos. No spectrums. No binaries. Nothing. Only a recognition of positionality and in presenting this work, a generosity and shared vulnerability, that may transubstantiate into a shared revolution.
LINK
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
The Center for Afrofuturist Studies welcomes its first artist-in-residence [ARTICLE]
The Center for Afrofuturist Studies at Public Space One, launched in January, is bringing the first of its planned artists-in-residence to Iowa City starting in May.
From May 1–7, Tiona McClodden will be at the Center. The filmmaker, storyteller and visual artist lives and works in North Philadelphia. Her art critically examines race, gender, sexuality and their intersections. She is dedicated to the exploration of visual storytelling.
McClodden’s first public event is an artist talk on Tuesday, May 3. She will be presenting work from Be Alarmed: The Black Americana Epic. McClodden will also gather with elementary school students on Wednesday, May 4 at the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, to create new work.
Over the course of her residency, McClodden will be studying and researching the work of Ana Mendieta, who studied at the University of Iowa in the 1970s. The works created in conjunction with this study and her work with the elementary students will culminate in an exhibit which will be at Public Space One on May 6–7. The official gallery opening will take place May 6 at 6 p.m.
LINK
below: Tiona McClodden
From May 1–7, Tiona McClodden will be at the Center. The filmmaker, storyteller and visual artist lives and works in North Philadelphia. Her art critically examines race, gender, sexuality and their intersections. She is dedicated to the exploration of visual storytelling.
McClodden’s first public event is an artist talk on Tuesday, May 3. She will be presenting work from Be Alarmed: The Black Americana Epic. McClodden will also gather with elementary school students on Wednesday, May 4 at the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, to create new work.
Over the course of her residency, McClodden will be studying and researching the work of Ana Mendieta, who studied at the University of Iowa in the 1970s. The works created in conjunction with this study and her work with the elementary students will culminate in an exhibit which will be at Public Space One on May 6–7. The official gallery opening will take place May 6 at 6 p.m.
LINK
below: Tiona McClodden
'Malcolm X & Barry Goldwater, 1964', 2013 by Jason Patterson
[portraits: fixed chalk pastel on raw canvas. under clear acrylic and polymer varnish. 27 x 23in; frame: aquarellable pencil on pine wood. under polymer finish; 59.25 x 27.75in]
LINK
LINK
Friday, April 15, 2016
Malick Sidibé, Photographer Known for Social Reportage in Mali, Dies at 80 [ARTICLE]
Malick Sidibé, whose black-and-white photographs of young partygoers captured the exuberance of newly independent Mali in the 1960s and ’70s and made him one of Africa’s most celebrated artists after his work was shown abroad in the 1990s, died on Thursday in Bamako, Mali. He was 80.
His son Karim Sidibé said the cause was complications of diabetes, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Sidibé started out taking pictures at weddings and christenings in the 1950s, using a Kodak Brownie camera, but after opening his own studio he branched out into a more ambitious form of social reporting. He attended Saturday-night parties at which young Malians, dressed to the nines, danced the twist, the rumba and the merengue to the Beatles, James Brown and Afro-Caribbean music. This was Mali’s youthquake, and Mr. Sidibé was its photographic witness.
“For me, photography is all about youth,” he told The Daily Telegraph of London in 2008. “It’s about a happy world full of joy, not some kid crying on a street corner or a sick person.”
His small-format photographs, surrounded by a brown tape border, were intended to be kept as souvenirs or sent as postcards. But after Western collectors discovered his work in the 1990s, they began presenting it, in enlarged sizes, in galleries and museums in Europe and the United States. He quickly became, with the older Seydou Keita, Mali’s most famous photographer and an international star.
Mr. Sidibé was the first African to receive the Hasselblad Award, in 2003, and at the 2007 Venice Biennale he received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, the first given to either a photographer or an African artist.
“He really changed the way Westerners look at Africa,” said Jack Shainman, whose Manhattan gallery currently has an exhibition of Mr. Sidibé’s work. (It runs through next Saturday.) “He captured the newfound freedom after colonialism — that time, and that moment,” he said.
Malick Sidibé was born in 1935 or 1936 in Soloba, a village in what was then French Sudan. He grew up in an extended family of 60 and herded sheep and cattle for his father.
He was chosen by the village chief to be the first child in his family to attend school, a white institution in Yanfolila, where he learned French. His skill at drawing with charcoal earned him a place at the Sudan School for Craftsmen (now the National Arts Institute), where he was trained as a jewelry maker.
A French expatriate photographer, Gérard Guillat-Guignard, hired Mr. Sidibé to decorate his combined studio and shop, Photo Service Boutique, and then took him on as an apprentice. While running the cash register and delivering photographs to customers, Mr. Sidibé closely observed Mr. Guillat and absorbed the fundamentals of photography.
Before long, he started working commercially. “I did the African events, the photos of Africans, and he did the European events — the major balls, official events,” Mr. Sidibé told the photography website gwinzegal.com in 2008.
After going out on his own, he created Studio Malick in 1958, where he specialized in portrait photography with his own distinctive touch. He coaxed his subjects into more informal poses that gave his work a lively, vibrant quality. Tonally bold and beautifully composed, they often showed subjects glorying in a new possession — a sheep or a motorcycle — or showing off in modern clothes.
“Generally, women come to get photographed as soon as they have a new hairdo or purchase a trendy piece of jewelry: a bracelet, a necklace, a handbag,” Mr. Sidibé told The Los Angeles Times in 2002. “For men, it’s when they buy a new bicycle or motorcycle.”
He found a rich subject in the parties and dances put on by social clubs with names like the Sputniks, the Black Socks and Las Vegas. On some nights, he would attend four parties, one after the other, photographing young Malians able, for the first time, to dance close together.
“At that time, young people were very motivated,” he told the French newspaper Libération in 1995. “Every Saturday night you had to dress elegantly. People would plan their outfits all week long. To make an impression, you had to be impeccable, with a trouser crease so sharp you could cut off the head of a chicken with it.”
He later produced a portrait series called “Vue de Dos,” which showed women with their backs turned to the camera.
In the early 1990s, when he had turned to camera repair work to earn a living, Mr. Sidibé was discovered by the photographer Françoise Huguier and by André Magnin, a curator who had been sent to West Africa by Jean Pigozzi, a French collector.
Mr. Magnin organized an exhibition of Mr. Sidibé’s work at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, and a coffee-table book appeared soon after. In 1999, Jeffrey Deitch showed Mr. Sidibé’s party photos in Manhattan in the show “The Clubs of Bamako.” A documentary about him, “Dolce Vita Africana,” was shown on British television in 2008.
He is survived by three wives and 17 children.
As he grew older, Mr. Sidibé stopped going to the parties, unable to blend in, but he remained sentimental about the era and the free and easy way that young Malians of all classes mingled on the dance floor.
“I loved the music and the atmosphere, but above all I loved the dancers,” he told The Telegraph. “The moments when young people dance and play as though the stars belong to them — that’s what I loved the most.”
LINK
His son Karim Sidibé said the cause was complications of diabetes, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Sidibé started out taking pictures at weddings and christenings in the 1950s, using a Kodak Brownie camera, but after opening his own studio he branched out into a more ambitious form of social reporting. He attended Saturday-night parties at which young Malians, dressed to the nines, danced the twist, the rumba and the merengue to the Beatles, James Brown and Afro-Caribbean music. This was Mali’s youthquake, and Mr. Sidibé was its photographic witness.
“For me, photography is all about youth,” he told The Daily Telegraph of London in 2008. “It’s about a happy world full of joy, not some kid crying on a street corner or a sick person.”
His small-format photographs, surrounded by a brown tape border, were intended to be kept as souvenirs or sent as postcards. But after Western collectors discovered his work in the 1990s, they began presenting it, in enlarged sizes, in galleries and museums in Europe and the United States. He quickly became, with the older Seydou Keita, Mali’s most famous photographer and an international star.
Mr. Sidibé was the first African to receive the Hasselblad Award, in 2003, and at the 2007 Venice Biennale he received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, the first given to either a photographer or an African artist.
“He really changed the way Westerners look at Africa,” said Jack Shainman, whose Manhattan gallery currently has an exhibition of Mr. Sidibé’s work. (It runs through next Saturday.) “He captured the newfound freedom after colonialism — that time, and that moment,” he said.
Malick Sidibé was born in 1935 or 1936 in Soloba, a village in what was then French Sudan. He grew up in an extended family of 60 and herded sheep and cattle for his father.
He was chosen by the village chief to be the first child in his family to attend school, a white institution in Yanfolila, where he learned French. His skill at drawing with charcoal earned him a place at the Sudan School for Craftsmen (now the National Arts Institute), where he was trained as a jewelry maker.
A French expatriate photographer, Gérard Guillat-Guignard, hired Mr. Sidibé to decorate his combined studio and shop, Photo Service Boutique, and then took him on as an apprentice. While running the cash register and delivering photographs to customers, Mr. Sidibé closely observed Mr. Guillat and absorbed the fundamentals of photography.
Before long, he started working commercially. “I did the African events, the photos of Africans, and he did the European events — the major balls, official events,” Mr. Sidibé told the photography website gwinzegal.com in 2008.
After going out on his own, he created Studio Malick in 1958, where he specialized in portrait photography with his own distinctive touch. He coaxed his subjects into more informal poses that gave his work a lively, vibrant quality. Tonally bold and beautifully composed, they often showed subjects glorying in a new possession — a sheep or a motorcycle — or showing off in modern clothes.
“Generally, women come to get photographed as soon as they have a new hairdo or purchase a trendy piece of jewelry: a bracelet, a necklace, a handbag,” Mr. Sidibé told The Los Angeles Times in 2002. “For men, it’s when they buy a new bicycle or motorcycle.”
He found a rich subject in the parties and dances put on by social clubs with names like the Sputniks, the Black Socks and Las Vegas. On some nights, he would attend four parties, one after the other, photographing young Malians able, for the first time, to dance close together.
“At that time, young people were very motivated,” he told the French newspaper Libération in 1995. “Every Saturday night you had to dress elegantly. People would plan their outfits all week long. To make an impression, you had to be impeccable, with a trouser crease so sharp you could cut off the head of a chicken with it.”
He later produced a portrait series called “Vue de Dos,” which showed women with their backs turned to the camera.
In the early 1990s, when he had turned to camera repair work to earn a living, Mr. Sidibé was discovered by the photographer Françoise Huguier and by André Magnin, a curator who had been sent to West Africa by Jean Pigozzi, a French collector.
Mr. Magnin organized an exhibition of Mr. Sidibé’s work at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, and a coffee-table book appeared soon after. In 1999, Jeffrey Deitch showed Mr. Sidibé’s party photos in Manhattan in the show “The Clubs of Bamako.” A documentary about him, “Dolce Vita Africana,” was shown on British television in 2008.
He is survived by three wives and 17 children.
As he grew older, Mr. Sidibé stopped going to the parties, unable to blend in, but he remained sentimental about the era and the free and easy way that young Malians of all classes mingled on the dance floor.
“I loved the music and the atmosphere, but above all I loved the dancers,” he told The Telegraph. “The moments when young people dance and play as though the stars belong to them — that’s what I loved the most.”
LINK
'Laughter Is Medicine' Jasmine Nyende @ Machine Project [LOS ANGELES/USA]
Join us Friday, April 15th and Saturday, April 16th at 8pm for Laughter Is Medicine, a Mystery Theater performance by artist Jasmine Nyende. For two nights Nyende channels the legacies of black female stand-up comics of the past, in an attempt to uncover the elusive mainstream black female comic ideal. This event is $10 general and $5 for Machine members.
I read in an article that audiences don’t respond well to female comedians in Hawaiian shirts. There’s nothing relaxing about a woman talking. I’m testing you.
Image designed by Jonathan Smith
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Stan Douglas
I. Exodus, 1975, 2012 [digital c-print mounted on aluminum; 71 x 101 1/2 in. (180.3 x 257.8 cm)]
II. Olde Curio Shop, 2010 [digital c-print mounted on dibond aluminum; 59 1/2 x 84 in. (151.1 x 213.4 cm)]
LINK
II. Olde Curio Shop, 2010 [digital c-print mounted on dibond aluminum; 59 1/2 x 84 in. (151.1 x 213.4 cm)]
LINK
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