In July 2008, Vogue Italia�s all-black models issue broke silence around fashion-industry racism � and a few sales records, too. But acclaimed American artist Kerry James Marshall knows that fashion isn�t the only realm where more black models are needed. Raised in the civil-rights hotspots of Birmingham, Ala., and Watts, Calif., Marshall�s beautifully composed paintings feature black people only. The artist spoke with Leah Sandals about race, rows and representation before the opening of his first Canadian solo show (co-curated by art star Jeff Wall) which ran May 8, 2010 to January 3, 2011 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
At the age of 14, you vowed never to paint a white person. Why?
That statement came from thinking about art history. When you read art books and go to museums, almost all the people you see in paintings are white. When you take classes at art schools, almost all the models � at least that we had � were white. What you do with that experience is take for granted that white-figure representation is what constitutes art. The idea of the black figure in pictures is not something that people have as part of their common experience.
So when I first started making pictures, that was what I did, too � I made compositions with white figures, because �that�s what art looked like.� Since then, I became interested in what people expect to see when they go to a museum. That�s why I decided I would always paint black figures � to me, that has the greatest transformative effect on people�s expectations of art.
When it becomes common to see black figures in art, there won�t be a need to make that statement. But until then, you have to hold to a conscious effort to introduce something different into people�s art-going experiences.
Given that art-world bias, how do you account for your own success as a black artist?
Well, I�m just one person! I dare say I wonder how many other black artists � other than Stan Douglas � have had a solo show in Vancouver. It doesn�t automatically spring to mind that if you think of an artist, you think of a black person. And that seriously affects how many black people think they can become artists, too.
How did you make the decision to be an artist, then?
I didn�t know any better! I just wanted to make pictures. When I was in kindergarten my teacher had a scrapbook of stuff she clipped out of magazines. That�s what made me want to be an artist, seeing the variety of those pictures. To a kid, a lot of that stuff looked magical.
Early on, I was also excited about how things were made. When I was a kid, there was a TV program called John Gnagy�s Learn to Draw. He would tell you exactly how to take circles and squares and make them into rockets and books. That had a profound effect on me, the idea that you could figure out how things were done, and get better at it.
[In early 2010], the director of the National Gallery of Canada was asked why there aren�t more artists of colour in the gallery�s collection. He said it was because the gallery chooses works on the basis of excellence, not ethnicity. What�s your response to those kinds of arguments?
To me, that statement is a conditioned response to being part of a dominant culture. In that structure, someone may only see good in things that are a reflection of their own dominance. I go to museums all the time, everywhere in the world. And I can say there�s a lot in museums that is not good. The art isn�t always in there because it�s good; often it�s because it�s familiar. Or because there�s some relationship the museum is trying to cultivate with a donor. Or because people will pay a lot for that art in the marketplace. There�s a lot of reasons why this idea of meritocracy is false.
IN the fall of 1932, fresh out of high school, Elizabeth Catlett showed up at the School of Fine and Applied Arts of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, having been awarded a prestigious full scholarship there. But she was turned away when it was discovered that she was �colored,� and she returned home to Washington to attend Howard University.
Seventy-six years later, the institution that had rejected her, now Carnegie Mellon University, awarded her an honorary doctorate in recognition of a lifetime�s work as a sculptor and printmaker. By then, after decades of living and making art in Mexico, she had become a legendary figure to many in the art world, to the point where some were even surprised to learn she was still alive.
But not everyone, and certainly not the far younger, primarily African-American artists included along with her in the show �Stargazers: Elizabeth Catlett in Conversation With 21 Contemporary Artists,� on view now at the Bronx Museum of Art. �A lot of people like her are just kind of myths,� said Hank Willis Thomas, whose gold-chain and cubic zirconia nod to both the abolitionists of the 19th century and to rappers, �Ode to CMB: Am I Not a Man and a Brother,� is in the show and shares with much of Ms. Catlett�s work a concern with the history of slavery and �the black body as commodity,� he said. �A lot of her work,� he added, �especially from the �60s and �70s, could pass as art of today.�
Ms. Catlett, now 96, is known for her work�s deep engagement with social issues and the politics of gender, race and deprivation. She started down this road during the Depression, when she participated in the Federal Art Project, and followed it consistently into the era of the activist Black Arts movement in the �60s and beyond. Which is not to say she has focused on message at the expense of form: she prepared for her M.F.A. under Grant Wood at the University of Iowa (�he was so kind,� she recalled recently, and he always addressed her as �Miss Catlett�) and also studied in New York with the Modernist sculptor Ossip Zadkine and at the Art Students League, developing her own brand of figurative modernism in bronze, stone, wood, drawings and prints.
South Africa photographer honored for Soweto photo
South African photographer, Sam Nzima, poses with his iconic photo.(AP Photo/Denis Farrell.)
By DONNA BRYSON, Associated Press � Wed Apr 27, 8:06 am ET
PRETORIA, South Africa � A South African photographer is being honored for helping expose apartheid's brutality to the world with a picture that ended his career.
On Wednesday, celebrated as Freedom Day in South Africa because it is the anniversary of the country's first all-race elections, President Jacob Zuma will bestow national honors on Sam Nzima for a photograph reminiscent of the "Pieta" he took showing a dying Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old shot by police during the June 16, 1976 Soweto uprising.
Nzima is receiving the Order of Ikhamanga, which recognizes South Africans who excel in arts, culture, literature, music, journalism and sport. He joins such past winners as jazz legend Hugh Masekela and novelist Alan Paton.
Nzima said in an interview Wednesday his photograph seen around the world "tells the story of what happened. You don't even need a caption to see that something terrible has happened."
Nzima, 75, said police were so enraged by the attention his photograph drew, he feared they would kill him. He left Johannesburg and his newspaper to become a businessman in a small eastern South African town.
But his photograph continued to draw attention. Nzima has spoken to students at a German high school named for Pieterson, and attended exhibitions that included his photograph in the United States, Briton and the Netherlands. Later this year, he will go to Belgium.
Pieterson was the first to die from police gunfire after Soweto students were ordered to disperse. The students were protesting an order that black students to be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the white-minority rulers.
Hundreds of blacks, many of them young people, were killed in ensuing clashes nationwide. Conflict escalated in the 1980s and finally led to apartheid's demise in the early 1990s.
Nzima said he arrived in Soweto early that morning in 1976, assigned to cover what he thought would be peaceful protests. He watched students paint signs.
"One said, "Afrikaans must be abolished.' Another, `We are being fed the crumbs of education,'" Nzima recalled.
The marchers were confronted by a white police officer who told them he would shoot if they did not disperse, Nzima said. Instead, Nzima said, they began singing, "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika," or "God Bless Africa."
"That song, which is the national anthem today, was banned then," Nzima said.
The police began shooting, and Nzima saw a boy fall. A tall boy picked him and began to run. Nzima took six pictures as the boy was taken to the nearest car, driven by a colleague from his newspaper, and taken to a clinic. There, he was pronounced dead and identified as Pieterson.
Nzima, working at a time when restrictions on reporting on conflict were draconian, removed the film and hid it in his sock. Later, police forced him to expose film in his camera, but the photos of Pieterson were safe.
"A lot of people ask me, why didn't I help Hector Pieterson?" Nzima said. "It was not my duty. A journalist must do his job. My job is to take pictures."
And this picture, he said, made a difference.
"This picture was an eye-opener for the whole world."
The Spring edition of Dressed magazine wears its stylish cover treatment by artist Son of Ellis well. Dubbed "The Art Issue" the magazine also features a Q & A with the Memphis-based talent who will host his first solo exhibit Pop Art: Revisited on Saturday, May 7, 2011 (see exhibits page). Check out the links below and be sure to check BlackArtistNews within the coming weeks for an exclusive interview with Son of Ellis.
Alex Carrier is a gallery guard at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. She's also working on a master's degree in Museum Studies at IUPUI. This is her touching account of Thornton Dial's recent visit to IMA.
Thornton Dial at the opening of the exhibition, "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial." Photo by Tad Fruits.
? The first time I learned about Thornton Dial was last fall in my Introduction to Museum Studies course at IUPUI. As preparatory work for a visit to the IMA, my class watched the documentary Mr. Dial Has Something To Say, which is now continually on view in the Davis Lab. I highly recommend it! Knowing all of the work he has accomplished in his life, I was overwhelmed when my boss, Cliff, told me that I was to escort Mr. Dial around the museum the morning that Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dialwould open.
On Thursday, February 24th, I stood in the the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion with butterflies in my stomach. Let me tell you, the anticipation of meeting a person you know to have such strength of spirit is extremely intimidating. Then I met Mr. Dial, and though his spirit is just as strong as I thought it would be, his personality was amazingly warm and inviting.
As we moved into Hard Truths, Mr. Dial saw, for the first time, his life�s work exhibited in a way that truly represented the emotion and care that exists in each of his pieces. He released a sigh, as though he had been holding his breath for twenty years. It was like friends meeting again after a long separation.
Though I was a silent observer, I was able to share an amazing experience with Mr. Dial � both of us seeing, for the first time, the most extensive and complete exhibition of his artwork to date. �You made it so beautiful,� Mr. Dial kept saying. Joanne Cubbs, Adjunct Curator of American Art, would continually reply, �You are the one who made it beautiful.� Walking with Mr. Dial was both amazing and humbling, and it made me appreciate his work and skill all the more.
Something that will stay with me is that when he spoke, though his voice was soft, everyone listened. People didn�t just stop talking out of courtesy or because Mr. Dial was the man of the hour, although he was that. People listened to what he said. They listened because when Mr. Dial spoke, he said things. His words, filled with stories and emotions, are windows into his artwork, and his artwork acts as windows into life. His artworks tell stories that really say things. When you walk into Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial, I hope you take the time to discover his stories for yourself, because each piece really does have something to say.
�Gathered,� Lorna Simpson's elegantly installed solo show at the Brooklyn Museum, appears minimal at first. Two pieces sprawl down one long, high-ceilinged gallery, leaving it mostly empty; a video hugs the far wall of an adjacent space. But together those pieces include nearly five hundred elements, most of them photographs, both appropriated and original. A cloud-like constellation of very small bronze-framed images -- vintage photo-booth portraits of African-Americans -- is installed alongside brushy black-ink abstractions and solid blocks of bronze that appear to mark absent figures. Another, larger work mixes found black-and-white photographs, taken in 1957, of a young black woman posing coquettishly, as if for a pinup magazine, with photographs Simpson took of herself as a pert, playful doppelganger, in the same poses. Hung together in a long, staggered grid, these images confuse past and present, artist and model, truth and illusion. As usual, Simpson is meditating on black history, identity, and gender roles, but as her work evolves it also opens up -- it gets richer and more engaging.
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Lorna Simpson: Gathered / January 28 - August 21, 2011 / Brooklyn Museum
A STARTLING sight will soon be hanging in midair in the Madison Avenue window of the Whitney Museum of American Art, just a few blocks from Ralph Lauren, Prada and Gucci: a 22-foot-long neon sign spelling out the words �negro sunshine.�
It�s the work of the New York Conceptual artist Glenn Ligon, whose midcareer retrospective, �Glenn Ligon: America,� opens at the Whitney on March 10. Taken from �Melanctha,� a 1909 novella by Gertrude Stein about a mixed-race woman, �negro sunshine� is the kind of ambiguous phrase that Mr. Ligon, who is black, uses to speak of the history of African-Americans. �I find her language fascinating,� he said of Stein. �It�s a phrase that stuck in my head.�
Are those two words, installed in such a prominent manner, meant to shock?
�Shock,� repeated Mr. Ligon, a bit surprised at the question. �It�s not provocative, it�s Gertrude Stein.�
�Even my Richard Pryor paintings,� he went on, referring to a series of work based on jokes told by that black comedian, use a common racial epithet. �Turn on the radio,� he said. �A word like that is so archaic, it�s not of this time. It�s about language.�
Since the late 1980s Mr. Ligon, 51, who is gay, has been creating paintings, prints and drawings using phrases written or uttered by personalities like Mary Shelley, James Baldwin and Malcolm X. Sometimes the words appear as a line floating in the middle of a canvas; other times are they are repeated over and over in a way that makes them abstract and illegible.
These phrases are often oblique � �I do not always feel colored�; �I lost my voice I found my voice�; �I was somebody�; �I am somebody� � raising a controversial or mysterious question and leaving the viewer to work for the answers. Mr. Ligon generally deals with race, gayness or simply what he calls �outsiderness,� and his paintings, drawings, sculptures and videos have captured the attention of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, which all have his work in their permanent collections. He�s also been noticed by President and Mrs. Obama, who chose Mr. Ligon�s 1992 painting �Black Like Me #2� for their private quarters at the White House, on loan from the Hirshhorn.
�Glenn is someone who has figured out how to give Conceptualism some grit,� said Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art, who bought an early painting by Mr. Ligon for himself and later another for MoMA when he was a curator there. �He�s influenced a younger generation, perhaps because he is a political artist but not a protest artist. He has an unwillingness to be boxed in.�
His retrospective feels particularly timely because it comes at a moment when glaring polemics are no longer fashionable. Artists these days raise social and historical issues but usually keep them at a distance. Yet the underlying messages of works like �Hands,� a photograph from the Million Man March, speak to the urgency of change. �His work captures political moments en masse, which seem quite compelling now when you consider the Middle East and the protests of collective bargaining in the Midwest as a form of democracy,� said the artist Lorna Simpson.
Since Mr. Ligon�s work draws heavily on written sources, one might expect his Brooklyn studio to resemble the Collyer Brothers� apartment, a haphazard pile-up of books, magazines and papers. But instead, his sunny space is spotless, with only one neatly arranged bookshelf and crisp white walls where a few of his painting hang. (Others are carefully propped up on the floor, leaning against one another.)
On a recent wintry afternoon less than a month before the show Mr. Ligon greeted a visitor in a down jacket, apologizing because there was barely any heat in the building. When asked about his looming deadline, he could still manage his trademark throaty laugh. �I�ve become very Zen,� he said. �I�ve gone through all the stages: anger, bargaining, acceptance. These days I spend so much time at the Whitney, all the guards know me.�
Mr. Ligon is the kind of guy who could fit in anywhere. With his shaved head, black glasses and wide smile, he has an unassuming yet welcoming face, one that has appeared in J. Crew catalogs and Gap ads. He has a dry wit and can talk as easily about serious fiction as popular movies and television shows. �There was a time when I was a huge TV addict,� he confessed. �I used to race home from school to watch �Dark Shadows.� � More recently he has been hooked on the British soap opera �Downton Abbey,� which he enjoys partly because it�s about class.
? Mr. Ligon himself grew up in a working-class family in the Bronx, his father a line foreman for General Motors and his mother a nurse�s aide. Weekdays he would commute to Manhattan, to Walden, a West Side private school, now defunct, where he and his older brother had scholarships. (�I don�t think my mother knew it was one of the most liberal schools in America,� he recalled.)
When he first thought he wanted to be an artist, his mother told him that �the only artists I ever heard of are dead,� but she enrolled him in pottery classes and made sure he got any book he wanted. �We didn�t have a lot of extra money, but there was an attitude that if it was educational, it was O.K.,� Mr. Ligon said. �Books, yes. Trips to the Met, yes. Hundred-dollar sneakers, no.� That, he said, may account for his love of literature. He reads voraciously � on paper, not on a screen � marking phrases that jump out at him.
Mr. Ligon went on to Wesleyan University with thoughts of becoming an architect, �but I realized I was more interested in how people live in buildings rather than making them,� he said. After college he became a proofreader in a law firm and painted at night and on weekends.
His big break came in 1989, when he got a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. �I thought if the government thinks I�m an artist, then I must be one,� he said. He started making art full time.
Now, although his studio is in Park Slope, he lives in Manhattan, near Chinatown. �I like having a studio to go to,� he said. �It�s like having a job.�
Although an urbanite at heart, Mr. Ligon also has a house in Hudson, N.Y., chosen for all the antiques shops and restaurants within walking distance. �In high school driver�s ed was at the same time as drama class,� he said, laughing. �And I had to take drama class. Now I can sing the lead in �Oklahoma!,� but I can�t drive. �Oklahoma!� was my destiny.�
So, it seems, is the Whitney. He joined its Independent Study Program in the mid-1980s and over the years has been part of many exhibitions, including two Biennials, the first in 1991 with three works for which he stenciled passages taken from the Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston on abandoned hollow-core doors. For the 1993 Biennial he produced an elaborate installation of photographs and texts examining the social implications of Robert Mapplethorpe�s homoerotic pictures of black men.
His work was also in the Whitney�s controversial �Black Male� exhibition the following year, where he showed a series of eight paintings in which newspaper profiles of the teenage black and Hispanic defendants in the Central Park jogger case were stenciled in oil stick on canvas. The results had the handmade look of early Jasper Johns, a hero of Mr. Ligon�s.
In 1996, when he had a show of drawings at the Brooklyn Museum, Holland Cotter, wrote in The New York Times: �Mr. Ligon�s drawn words have their own mystery. Seen through a haze of charcoal or in raking gallery light, they�re hard to read, but their ideas are big.�
Mr. Ligon slowly started gaining prominence in the early �90s along with a generation of artists like Ms. Simpson, Gary Simmons and Janine Antoni. But he hit a kind of artistic jackpot when the Obamas chose �Black Like Me #2� for their private living space at the White House. It came as a total surprise to Mr. Ligon, who said he was �very flattered.�
�It�s not an easy piece, which is why I�m so thrilled,� said Mr. Ligon, who has never met the Obamas. The painting�s title echoes John Howard Griffin�s 1961 memoir, in which Griffin, who was white, traveled in the South posing as a black man.
In trying to capture the sweep of Mr. Ligon�s career, Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney curator who organized the retrospective, said he had tried to show him in a way that went beyond the obvious. �Although people think they know his work � the black and white text paintings in particular � I�ve tried to tease out the distinctions of one painting from another so that people can appreciate their specificity,� he said.
Mr. Ligon forms letters with stencils because �it�s a way to be semi-mechanical, to make letters that are not handwriting but have personality,� he said. �Handwriting would make these quotations too much mine, and stencils give it a bit more distance. They also allow me to keep being painterly but also have the kind of content I want a painting to have.� And rather than use oil paint, which can get messy, he uses oil stick, so that each letter has a more defined quality. For some works he has also flocked the canvas with coal dust to give it a textured, glittering feeling.
Neon sculptures create yet another message, a kind of 21st-century signage that hints at advertising but is quite the opposite of promotional. On the first floor of Mr. Ligon�s studio building is Lite Brite Neon, a custom lighting fabrication studio where, on a recent visit, the �negro sunshine� sculpture was being made for the Whitney�s window. On a long work table the perfectly made letters spelling out �negro� rested against a white metal backing.
As Mr. Ligon inspected the progress, he explained that the front of the letters will be painted black, for a shadow play between light and dark. In the show there will also be neon wall reliefs that spell out just one word � �America� � from which the retrospective�s title was taken.
Mr. Rothkopf said the decision to call the show �Glenn Ligon: America� was a very conscious one. �Although he emerged amidst a generation of artists who deal with race and sexual identity, his work speaks more broadly,� Mr. Rothkopf said. �Not just to African-Americans or gay Americans, but to all Americans.�
Even children. There will be work Mr. Ligon made in 2000, for an exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where he gave kids black-history coloring books from the 1970s to crayon. What particularly fascinated him was how totally oblivious the children were to the political agenda behind the images. �One of the kids looked at the Malcom X picture and asked if it was me,� he said.
The retrospective will also include paintings based on �Stranger in the Village,� a 1953 essay by Baldwin. �I keep returning to it over and over again,� Mr. Ligon said. �It�s panoramic. Baldwin is in Switzerland, he�s working on a novel, and he�s thinking about what it means to be a stranger somewhere, literally and metaphorically. You have to be a bit outside of something to see it. I think any artist does that. It�s an artist�s job to always have their antennas up.�
Article by Daniel Kunitz / Photograph by Keziban Barry
Asked about the paintings in his tidy Brooklyn studio, Glenn Ligon jocularly claims they�re "just wampum. I don�t even make work to sell anymore. I just make it to trade." For what? you might wonder. "All those artists that I can�t really afford to buy." His numerous collectors will, no doubt, hope he�s kidding. Whatever Ligon hasn�t already traded away can be seen in "Glenn Ligon: America," a 25-year retrospective that opens March 10 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York. He has also contributed to a volume that will be published this spring. "A People on the Cover" explores the cultural and political history of black people by analyzing the images and graphics on the front of books written by and about them.
To view items from the artist's studio, with Ligon's accompanying commentary,
A few questions with Corinne Stevie Francilus Original post by Wyatt Williams on Mon. Jan. 31, 2011 at 12:51am
Corinne Stevie Francilus at MOCA GA with her painting Gunnation remix (Mixed media, 2008) (Photo by Taryn L. Crenshaw)
The conceit of MOCA GA's current Movers and Shakers is simple and clever: let artists who were part of the exhibition in previous years pick their favorite "Rising Stars of the Georgia Art Scene." The connection between these artists is sometimes easy and clear to identify and other times more perplexing. Alex Kvares' selection of Jason R. Butcher, for example, makes perfect sense when you consider the way drawing and color is emphasized in both of their works. Making a connection between the video artist Micah Stansell's selection of Jeff Guy's uncomfortably funny bowling ball sculpture, though, requires a deeper consideration of the themes at play in their work.
Corinne Stevie Francilus and Fahamu Pecou (Photo by Taryn L. Crenshaw via corinnestevie.com/blog)
The reasons whyFahamu Pecouselected Corinne Stevie Francilus are both obvious and not. Her painting and collage work does some grappling with global politics through the lens of hip-hop culture and imagery, as the best of Pecou's paintings have done, but it isn't interested in the flashy examination of self that dominates his work. Her detailed works emphasize precision over scale, again opposite from Pecou's current style. The most obvious reason for Pecou to choose Francilus, though, is simply that she's a talented young painter who hasn't had nearly enough attention yet.
We caught up with her to ask a few questions and see more of her work.
M.I.A. as Krishna (Acrylic and Spraypaint, 2008)
What's your background? When did you start painting?
When you ask what is my background I feel like I can answer this question in multiple ways. Let's see, I'm an Haitian-American artist born and raised in Miami. I started painting when I was in the 8th grade.
What's your process like? With "Gun Nation Remix" for example, did you start with a specific idea or image in mind?
My process was a bit tedious for "Gun Nation Remix." First I created my wooden panel and rounded the corners to prepare it. Then I began thinking the about the imagery. It all started with this photo-journalism book my roommate had laying around the studio. My roommate always kept an array of books that had great imagery. As I was flipping through this book, I came across a couple photos that really spoke to me. The photos were taken by British photographer Zed Nelson and they came from his series called "Gun Nation." The "Gun Nation" series focused on the gun culture in America. When I was a child my father was robbed and shot and I never really got a chance to deal with this incident because I was so young. I chose two images from this series scanned them in, printed them out in black and white and I began to collage them on to the panel. Once I arranged and put the images on my panel everything else just flowed with the paint. I consider this painting to be mixed media because I combined so many materials; spray paint, house paint, acrylic paint, collage photos,and decorative tissue paper.
A Woman's Heart (Mixed media, 2009)
Fahamu Pecou, one of the artists in the show last year, selected you for inclusion this year. Did he let you know that he was choosing you?
I've been getting familiar with Fahamu Pecou's work since I arrived in Atlanta in '05. He actually attended Atlanta College of Art (now, Savannah College of Art and Design) years before I arrived there. My freshmen year in college, I remember seeing flyers around for his shows. More recently I'd gotten the chance to meet him during the art walks and other artsy events. I had no idea he was going to choose me � it was a very nice surprise.
Who or what influences your work?
Everything and everyone in my life. Family, friends, art history, the media, other artists, music, musicians, flowers, sunlight, moonlight, butterflies and hummingbirds. I can go on and on. I try to be open to different kinds of inspirations.
When can we look forward to seeing more of your in the future?
I will be showcasing new and old work at the Auburn Research Library at in March with an artist collective called Esoteric Lore. You can also check out my latest work on my website Corinnestevie.com and check my blog corinnestevie.com/blog for weekly sketches and paintings.
Movers and Shakers, a group exhibition including 32 artists from Georgia, runs at MOCA GA until March 19. More details at MOCA.
In October 2010 the Sundance Channel ran "Beginnings"a series of short films celebrating seven creative individuals and their early inspirations in New York City. Subjects of the films include artist Mickalene Thomas, fashion designer Carolina Herrera, photographer Mario Sorrenti, dancer/choreographer Carmen De Lavallade, and Yoko Ono. Each film runs 2 minutes, 30 seconds and is directed by Chiara Clemente.
HAND IN HAND Artist Rashaad Newsome explores the gestural compositions of hip-hop music videos and sets them to a brand-new beat.?
"In this picture, I am testing the sound levels for my pieces in 'Greater New York' titled The Conductor (Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi) and The Conductor (Primo Vere, Omnia Sol Temperat). The videos are the first and second movements of a six-part video installation that sets Carl Orff�s Carmina Burana against a video montage of expressive hand gestures, extracted from popular rap videos, and a musical background of hip-hop beats. As Orff�s iconic oratorio opens with O Fortuna, a closely edited sequence of bejewelled gestures appears to conduct the music."
In the video above, Rashaad Newsome talks about his captivating video installation The Conductor (Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi) (2008), currently on view at MoMA PS1 as part of the the Greater New York 2010 exhibition. In this work (the first in a six-part series), Newsome combines clips culled from rap music videos with selections from the composer Carl Orff�s classical masterpiece Carmina Burana, a piece of music that has itself been widely sampled in pop culture. The music-video footage has been edited to isolate and remix shots of the rap artists� hand gestures so they appear to be conducting Orff�s orchestra, a juxtaposition that allows Newsome to playfully break down boundaries between seemingly opposed cultural forms.
In Newsome�s videos, collages, and performances, distinctions between and expectations about high and low culture are upended and reconfigured. Using what he calls �the equalizing force of sampling��a process borrowed from hip-hop�Newsome adopts the role of composer in his work, appropriating and reframing imagery, sounds, and gestures from a variety of pop-cultural sources associated with predominately black subcultures, such as vogueing, so-called �ghetto� expressions, �bling� jewelry, and rap music videos.
Rashaad Newsome. The Conductor (Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi). 2008. Installation view at MoMA PS1 in the exhibition Greater New York 2010 (May 23�October 18, 2010). Photo by Matthew Septimus
Ava DuVernay at a screening of her film �I Will Follow,� which will be the first to benefit from a campaign to widen the distribution of black-themed films.
By MICHAEL CIEPLY ?
LOS ANGELES � Ava DuVernay, the filmmaker and publicist, imagines a time when black-theme pictures will flourish in places where African-American film festivals have already found eager viewers. ???? ? ?????????????????
Fifty such cities would be an ideal black-film circuit, Ms. DuVernay said. In March she will start with five.
Salli Richardson-Whitfield and Omari Hardwick in �I Will Follow.�
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The plan is to put black-theme movies in commercial theaters, initially from the independent film program recently begun by the AMC theater chain, for a two-week run supported by social networks, mailing lists and other buzz-building services at the disposal of allied ethnic film festivals.
A second film, and three more cities � Chicago, Boston and Nashville � are expected to follow in August.
And if Ms. DuVernay is correct in her belief that African-American viewers want more movies than they are getting from conventional distributors, the movement will eventually reach about four dozen cities where black-oriented festivals have been gaining strength, even as black film languishes in the studio world.
Speaking over espresso and hot chocolate at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills last week, Ms. DuVernay, 38, who helped market studio films like �Dreamgirls� and �Invictus,� described the new alliance, which she organized, as being less a business than a �call to action.�
Those who make specifically black-theme movies, she said, should realize that �no one is ever going to care about their film except the people it�s made for, which is, black folks.�
According to a 2009 survey of moviegoing compiled for the Motion Picture Association of America, African-Americans, about 12 percent of the North American population, accounted for only 11 percent of ticket sales and less than 9 percent of frequent moviegoers. (By contrast, Hispanics, who make up 15 percent of the population, bought 21 percent of tickets, according to the study.)
By some accounts, that is because the black film world is shrinking.
Stacy Spikes, a former Miramax Films executive who is the founder and chief executive of the Urbanworld festival, is one of several executives who said the distribution of black-theme films began to evaporate in the last five years. That happened, he said, as New Line Cinema, Warner Independent Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and other companies that had specialized in midbudget comedies and dramas shrank or disappeared.
�There�s a breakdown in distribution, especially at the indie level, for things like this,� Mr. Spikes said of films whose primary audience is black.
Films in a long-running Tyler Perry series have continued to do well � Mr. Perry�s �Why Did I Get Married Too?� brought in $60 million in domestic ticket sales for Lionsgate last year, and was the best-performing black-theme film of 2010. For the most part, though, movies by black filmmakers with a largely black cast barely registered at the box office.
As recently as 2002, the success of �Barbershop,� which cost a little more than $10 million to make and took in nearly $76 million at the domestic box office for MGM, seemed to point toward a resurgence in black-theme films. Chris McGurk, who was then vice chairman of MGM, even tried to position the studio as a gathering point for black filmmakers.
But the strategy faltered, Mr. McGurk said, as costs rose, and black-theme films, which generally underperform in foreign markets, outgrew their niche. �The economics of that business really only work if you�re able to produce them for $10 million or less,� he explained.
Told of Ms. DuVernay�s new alliance, Mr. McGurk, who is now the chief executive of Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corporation, said, �They�re doing the right thing.� Low budgets and precise marketing, he said, are critical to reviving the genre.
Others warn that great passion and a festival network cannot match the power of a well-heeled studio distribution mechanism. And Ms. DuVernay acknowledges that her alliance can do little more than get a picture on screens; turning a profit will depend on what happens to a film at additional theaters and in home entertainment markets after its brief introduction.
Still, Mr. Spikes said, filmmakers and studios could learn something from glad-handing politicians, who have long used networking and physical presence to build support. Films distributed by the new alliance, he said, will be backed by directors and stars who are willing �to go on the road and do that heavy-lifting� with festival-style appearances at screenings.
As opportunity diminished in feature films, Mr. Spikes noted, black actors and filmmakers � like more than a few white counterparts � have turned increasingly to television. He cited Regina King, who plays the detective Lydia Adams on �Southland,� as someone who was once better known for her work in feature films like �Boyz N the Hood,� �Poetic Justice� and �How Stella Got Her Groove Back.�
Yet this year�s Sundance Film Festival has a strong run of work by black filmmakers, including �Pariah,� about the struggles of a Bronx teenager, from the writer and director Dee Rees, and �Gun Hill Road,� another Bronx tale, written and directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green.
John Cooper, the Sundance festival�s director, said his programmers had not consciously reached for black-centered films but came up with a bumper crop anyway. �It�s almost natural selection,� Mr. Cooper said. He noted, however, that almost all of those films arrived without distributors.
When Sundance gets under way in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 20, Ms. DuVernay said she would be there to introduce her alliance with a couple of filmmaker dinners. And she applauds Mr. Cooper for having put the spotlight on at least a dozen black-theme pictures at this year�s event.
Chuck Close, mustache close-up of Lucas (1987-88), via ShowMedia
Throughout January, artwork by Chuck Close and Kehinde Wiley will travel New York City atop 500 taxi cabs, thanks to art enthusiast and ShowMedia president John Amato. With an estimated value of $100,000, Amato said, �I can do this as my annual holiday gift not just to myself, but to everyone who enjoys seeing the art as it travels around New York City�s streets.� �Art Adds� is the second annual collaboration between ShowMedia and the Art Production Fund, a campaign bringing art to the streets for all to enjoy. The inaugural year featured Alex Katz, Shirin Neshat, and Yoko Ono.
Kehinde Wiley, The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia (2008), via ShowMedia
Though some critics are skeptical of the seemingly too-good-to-be-true advertising ploy�or lack thereof�Art Production Fund co-founder Doreen Remen states, �This is nothing against consumerism or companies, but this is a different kind of exchange. It�s about the intangible and having a conversation that isn�t about the physical world,� according to the Wall Street Journal.
Kehinde Wiley, Femme Piquee Par Un Serpent (2008), via Next.Liberation.Fr
As both artists are known for their large works, the relatively small advertisement space of a taxi cab offers an entirely new context in more ways than one. In dealing with this consideration, Wiley�s work has simply been scaled down, allowing for his racially and politically charged juxtapositions to still be taken in as a whole. The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia (2008) and Femme Piquee Par Un Serpent (2008) are Wiley�s two pieces selected for the project.
Close has chosen instead to crop small portions of his work for the cabs, decontexualizing Lucas Samaras� mustache or Lorna Simpson�s eyes to an even further extent (Lucas (1987-88) and Lorna (2006) are Close�s two contributions). A recent appointee to President Obama�s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Close is an advocate of exploring new avenues for public art education and promotion.
Chuck Close, eyes close-up of Lorna (2006), via ShowMedia
Mark Bradford is looking to give artists an easier way to help one another.
Last December, the mixed-media painter gave a $100,000 donation to nonprofit organization United States Artists to create a fund financed by artists that will disburse grants to their peers.
"We've all been to rent parties where we help fellow artists raise funds," says Mr. Bradford. "All we're doing now is making an informal economy formal."
The Artists2Artists Fund will match gifts received through USA Projects, a new fund-raising social networking Web site.
The microphilanthropy website is an extension of USA, a nonprofit founded in 2005 with initial funding from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. It awards $50,000 fellowship grants to 50 artists a year. Since its inception, it has awarded $12.5 million.
Through the site, artists create a project Web page, where they publicly display plans for future work, ask for support and raise money. Artists then set their own fundraising goals and deadlines. Supporters donate funds to USA, which gives 81% to the artist. The other 19% goes to the charity for its program and Web site expenses.
Current projects include ones by New York puppeteer Dan Hurlin, who is raising money for a new theater performance about the homeless in Santa Monica, Calif., and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris's "Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing and the Fight for Fairness," a documentary connecting the movements of civil rights and gay marriage.
USA awarded Mr. Bradford its $50,000 fellowship grant in 2006. The next year, he joined the organization's board of directors.
Mr. Bradford, whose work has been included in major exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's genius grant last year. He says a number of artists were instrumental in helping launch his career.
For instance, he recalls Daniel Joseph Martinez, the artist known for his "I Can't Imagine Ever Wanting to Be White" piece at the 1993 Whitney Biennial art show, who helped fund his first show.
Now that he is being asked to help support museums and other artists, he wants to focus his philanthropy on helping artists find funds to "keep moving."
"The worst thing for artists is not to have the money available to carry out the ideas they have in their heads," Mr. Bradford says.
Kori Newkirk is among talent included in the December/January 2011 issue of Interview magazine's "L.A. ARTWORLD" feature. Curation and text by CHRISTOPHER BOLLEN; Photography by ROBBIE FIMMANO.
Kori NEWKIRK
Most mornings Kori Newkirk takes the bus to his studio in downtown L.A., making him one of the few established artists not reliant on a car. �I haven�t had a car in a year,� he says. �With so much of the art world imploding lately and funding changing, I figured that when my car died I really didn�t need it.� There is something of this scrap-the-past-and-start-over mentality about the 40-year-old artist�s own career, which has already experienced several distinct progressions in the last decade: from this former New Yorker�s rising-star status as a �post-black� artist making decorative paintings to his more complicated media-driven installations in recent years. Now Newkirk seems to be undergoing another creative metamorphosis. �I�m trying to figure out again what it means to be an artist,� he says. �It�s a re-investigation. I�m playing around in my studio.� Most artists of Newkirk�s generation have been boxed into specific mediums or motifs, but Newkirk has always resisted easy classifications. At a recent solo show at the Schindler House, he added black circular magnets with jagged edges to windows, which had the sense of sunspots. �I�m really into science fiction these days,� he explains. �But I also realized that if I lived in a house like that one, it would be all shot up, and the windows would be riddled with bullets.� Another piece in that show was a circular pattern of T-shirts arranged on the floor, covered in sweat and dirt. One day at the studio he realized that his own shirt stains looked almost like tie-dye. Tie dye is traditionally a hippie symbol, but Newkirk says, �that sculpture had to do with labor. My parents might have wanted to enjoy the Summer of Love but they couldn�t. They were working. �I�d love to be outside with you but I have to be in here scrubbing floors.� � Let�s hope Newkirk never gets stuck in classifications.
Born in the Bronx, Kori Newkirk first moved to California for graduate art school in 1995 and eventually settled in Los Angeles, where he began making work out of such obscure but provocative materials as hair extensions, pony beads, and pomade. Since then, the artist (born 1970) has continued to investigate cultural ideas and images of beauty, expanding his practice to include everything from neon lights to fiberglass sharks. In 2007, the Studio Museum in Harlem honored him with a 10-year retrospective of his work. Newkirk is now trying to put the past behind him and forge into some rather astounding and unexpected new directions.
CHRISTOPHER BOLLEN: Where's your studio?
KORI NEWKIRK: Downtown L.A., for the moment. I've been in the same place for about 10 years, but I'm ready to leave. Downtown is becoming very gentrified-the entitlement isn't good for me.
CB: Because prices are going up? Or is it about being in an atmosphere that's bad for making work?
KN: The atmosphere. Gentrification is a complicated thing, you know? I'm more used to it in the traditional sense, where it's a nice, long, slow thing-the New York style. In downtown L.A., money is making it happen very quickly. I prefer to be around people who have to work-to look out my window and see people who are, like, pushing carts and struggling.
CB: You recently had a show at LA>
KN: I wanted to deal with the idea of spectacle and celebrity, giving it some resonance with the political situation going on right now. I wanted to make the viewer complicit by having the whole thing mirrored-so we see ourselves in this.
CB: Do you feel like you fit into the L.A. art scene?
KN: L.A. is a very strange place. It's been really good to me as an artist, but I'm still often times considered a New York artist, even by people who live here. There are collectors in this town who still, to this day, go, "What are you doing here? Did you just arrive?" They think I should be in New York.
I DONT MAKE WORK THAT IS TRADITIONALLY CONSIDERED LOS ANGELES ART. THE ONLY NOIR THING ABOUT MY PRACTICE IS ME.�KORI NEWKIRK
CB: Is that because you had a lot of success in New York?
KN: It might be. Or it might be because I don't make work that is traditionally considered Los Angeles art. The only noir thing about my practice is me. [laughs] The dominant thrust for a while seemed to be noir and ironic. I just keep telling myself that I only live here, I'm not of here. That helps to keep me sane.
CB: So what will you work on next?
KN: I'm still going to tackle the subject of narcissism. [laughs] I'm going to make a giant toppled head out of Plexiglas and metal-like fake stained glass-for an upcoming solo show at The Project in New York.
CB: Whose head?
KN: Mine. [laughs] The head is going to look like it's been pushed over, like when regimes change they knock down all of the old statues and chop off their heads. Whatever happens with the U.S. election, whichever way it goes, I think the work will still resonate.
