Sonya Clark: Artist Talk

The theme of this post may be stated quite simply. It grew out of a sense to understand the artist, Sonya Clark, and the motivating force behind her work: purpose, drive, discovery and the like. Sonya was trained in the fiber arts. She weaves ideas and symbols into her thought provoking and demanding works of art which are created from ordinary objects/things (hair, combs, yarn, coins, a piece of cloth). These objects evolve into fresh, different, and creative works of art that fascinate me in their recreated sculptural forms. According to Sonya, our individual and collective stories are held in the object; "I work in series to reframe the object as a mediated compilation of our stories. In this way, the everyday thing becomes a lens through which we may better see one another."  

For the past few years, I have kept up with Sonya Clark through her monthly email updates and from reading various catalogues purchased during this period. However, about two weeks ago, I had an opportunity to personally meet and speak briefly with her at the opening reception of NEXT Generation exhibition at Contemporary Wing (Washington, DC). For me, this was an exciting and positive experience.... 

This Artist Talk resulted from an exhibition,The Global Africa Project, at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD, New York) last year. The Global Africa Project surveyed the rich pool of new talent emerging from the African continent and its influence on artists around the world.  

Mixed-Media Sculpture        Questions         Call and Response

 

Ancestry       Hair        Combs         Material Culture

 

Roots        Influence   

 

    

Select Art Exhibitions: Highlights for 2012

This begins the ninth year that the Black Art Project has presented on a national scale art exhibitions of artists of African descent. This post will simply highlight a few of those exhibitions that will have an opening date during the first quarter of 2012. Quarterly posts will follow, featuring subsequent exhibitions, as they approach their opening dates. These quarterly posts will assure a freshness and currency of information for the exhibition aficionado. Because this post is simply a highlight, look to the right sidebar of the blog for a more comprehensive feature of exhibitions in 2012. This sidebar is updated on a weekly basis by either adding newly discovered exhibitions or removing those that are closely approaching their expiration date.  

A number of important traveling exhibitions from the previous year are still on tour in 2012. Although they are not featured in these highlights, they are accessible from the sidebar. 

Black Art Project (BAP) welcomes any information or leads that you might have relating to Black art exhibitions, particularly regional exhibitions that are not traditionally marketed on a national scale. BAP will verify the accuracy of any information submitted. Thank you for any assistance that you provide.


 

Atlanta, Georgia

High Museum of Art



Bill Traylor, Untitled, ca 1939 - 1942,
Poster paint and pencil on cardboard,
11¾" x 7¾", High Museum of Art, Purchase
with funds from Mrs. Lindsay Hopkins, Jr.,
Edith G. and Philip Rhodes,
and the Members Guild



This traveling exhibition, Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, premieres at the High Museum of Art on February 5, 2012 and will be on view through May 13, 2012. The exhibition, featuring more than 60 works drawn from both collections, highlights some of the best examples of Traylor's work that is rarely seen outside of the southeastern United States. Bill Traylor "features representative works from Traylor's various genres, including human and animal figures and depictions of his memories of plantation life."

William Traylor was born into slavery sometime between 1852 and 1856, and he died in 1949. The artist began drawing when he was eighty-five years old, and produced more than 1,200 drawings within the next decade of his life. Traylor’s work has been represented in at least 30 solo exhibitions and 85 group shows since the late 1970s.  

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ackland Art Museum

Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper is on view March 30 - July 1, 2012 at the Ackland Art Museum. Thornton Dial's drawings are his most prolific body of work, and this exhibition features 50 of his earliest drawings from 1990-1991 which is defined as a pivotal moment in his artistic career. "The works in the exhibition - characterized by flowing lines, color washes, and images of women, fish, and tigers - provide a touchstone of Dial's creative process."

Thornton Dial is most recognized for his large scale, multi-media assemblages, as was reflected in two recent exhibitions: Thornton Dial: Disaster Areas (Bill Lowe Gallery, 2011) and Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial (Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2011). This current exhibition, at the Ackland Museum of Art, provides an opportunity for the viewer to explore the drawings, which are a lesser known but important portion of Dial's oeuvre.


A fully-illustrated catalogue accompanies Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper.

Charlotte, North Carolina

Harvey B. Gantt Center for

African-American Arts and Culture

James Phillips, jitterbug Waltz Series: CT,
Acrylic on paper, 30" x 40"

Rhythm-A-Ning: James Phillips, Charles Searles and Frank Smith is on view through June 30, 2012 at the Harvey B. Gantt Center. Works by the three artists featured in this exhibition "visually reflect the qualities and characteristics of jazz. Each artist - in his own way - has improvised with color , rhythm, patterns, and forms to abstractly produce work which can soar and challenge...."



  Montgomery, Alabama

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts 



Mose Tolliver (Mose T), Model T with creature,
Acrylic on plywood



Paintings by Mose Tolliver will be on view through March 4, 2012 at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. This exhibition includes a selection of the twenty-six paintings from the 1970s to the 1990s that are owned by the Museum. 

Mose Tolliver, who is usually referred to Mose T, was one of Montgomery’s most prolific and best-known self-taught artists.  "The subjects of Tolliver’s paintings were largely established by the early 1980s, and included first birds, then animals, people, and fantastic creatures that were products of his vivid imagination.  Unable to stand without crutches due to an industrial accident in the 1960s, he usually painted small works that could be supported on his lap, or laid flat on the floor."




Newark, Delaware
University of Delaware

University Museums

Mechanical Hall

Barkley L. Hendricks, Iconic Dexter,
2008/9, Archival pigment inkjet, 60" x 42",
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery,
New York

Magical Visions: Ten Contemporary African American Artists is on view February 1 - June 29, 2012 in Mechanical Hall at the University of Delaware / University Museums. This exhibition brings together the work "of artists who have pioneered significant changes in media, including assemblage, fiber, painting, photography, printmaking, quiltmaking, and sculpture to video with performance." The following artists are included in Magical Visions...: Terry Adkins, Sonya Clark, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Barkley L. Hendricks, Kalup Linzy, Odili Odata, Karen Olivier, Faith Ringgold, and Williams T. Williams. 

There will be an opening reception with Guest Curator Keith Morrison on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 from 5 – 6:30 pm. Please RSVP at universitymuseums@udel.edu or 302/ 831-8037. 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA)

Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building

Fisher Brooks Gallery

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit is on view January 28 - April 15, 2012 in the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building, Fisher Brooks Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. This much anticipated and long awaited exhibition will elevate Tanner's reputation through scholarship and bring his works together for the first time in a generation.



Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Seine, Looking
Toward Notre Dame, 1896, Oil on canvas,
14 7/8" x 20 1/8", Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld
Gallery, LLC, New York, NY

Henry Ossawa Tanner... focuses on the career and life of the artist that includes "the pioneering African-American artist’s upbringing in Philadelphia in the years after the Civil War; the artist’s success as an American expatriate artist at the highest levels of the international art world at the turn of the 20th century; Tanner’s role as a leader of an artist’s colony in rural France and his unique contributions in aid of American servicemen to the Red Cross efforts in WWI France; his modernist invigoration of religious painting deeply rooted in his own faith; Tanner’s depictions of the Holy Land and North Africa interpreted through comparison with contemporary French orientalist painting and photography; and the scientific and technical innovations of the artist’s oeuvre."

A catalogue accompanies this traveling exhibition. See gallery images and letters from the PAFA Archives; and Henry Ossawa Papers at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: Archives. 

For information regarding the reception and ticket(s) to view the exhibition, see: event

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building

Annenberg and Tuttleman Galleries

After Henry Tanner: African American Artists since 1940 is on view January 28 - April 15, 2012. This exhibition is a permanent collection installation drawn from PAFA's examples of work by African American artists. After Henry Tanner complements the Tanner retrospective and speaks to Tanner's enduring legacy for artists working today. 

NOTE:  Take a look at the right sidebar of the BAP blog for a more comprehensive listing of exhibitions in 2012; over 60 exhibitions are currently featured. Enjoy!

Artist Visit: Don Griffin

On a rainy, windy, and overall dreary day, I boarded a MARC train a couple of weeks ago for an undeterred, scheduled visit to Baltimore to meet with artist, Don Griffin and his representative, Diana Harris. The resulting visit in the artist's home/studio was a complete contrast to the weather; his space was filled with art, art supplies, warmth, and infused with jazz and lively conversation. This physical background was the perfect setting for spirited, stimulating, and engaging dialogue in which the three of us spent hours viewing and discussing some of the series of works that Don created over the past few years. The conversation vacillated between discussing the artist's creations, including interpreting and analyzing his art, to extended discussions about the art world with a focused interest on the art market. Expansive territory was covered as we pulled back the layers on the artistic process, marketing, galleries, collectors, museums, auctions, and the like.




Don Griffin, Paperworks 6.10 Vol 2 Plate 14,
 2010, Mixed media collage on paper,
18" x 18"

Don Griffin studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland. He has an extremely large body of work that falls into the category of abstraction. If he has to be categorized, he considers himself a "third generation" Abstract Expressionist. However, there were a number of works viewed that were figurative abstractions which happen to be productions created during his "off time," meaning that time that he is not engaged in his primary discipline, Abstract Expressionism.

Don's mixed media works incorporate found objects in many formats; there is a strong sense of recycling or green art. His works span the spectrum of subdued blacks, browns, and whites to his most recent incorporation of vibrant colors all guided by and in support of the theme of the series on which he is working. The recycled items include newspapers, pages from books, corrugated boxes, and peeled labels that serve as a substrate and background field of the work. According to Don, "a common thread between all the works are the Tracks or Ladders which are seen as sometimes subtle and other times predominant. Viewers see the icons as both Tracks and Ladders. In either case, whatever is seen represents a journey in some sense. To me, the Tracks represent a horizontal passage being connected to the earth, while the Ladder represents a vertical journey and more of a spiritual upward journey."

 


Don Griffin, Night Fall in Brazil
 (Nyte Life Series), 2011,
Mixed media on paper, 11" x 15"

The Nyte Life series is comprised of 10 mixed media works on paper, featuring the "Black Suited Man" as derived from the Passport to Equinox audio visual installation. In the words of the artist, "In Passport to Equinox, three black men were faceless with their backs towards the viewer and seeking knowledge through life's journeys. They ponder the vicissitudes of the black man, the isolated artist, creating and living in the real world, interacting and functioning productively despite conflict." The "Black Suited Man" experiences all phases of the Nyte Life. The variant colors represent the environs of the imagination with "the Man" being the constant... as he perseveres.  




Don Griffin, Nights on Broadway (Nyte Life Series), 2011
Mixed media on paper, 11" x 15"

 



Don Griffin, Concierto de Aranjuez
(Public Notice Series), 2011,
Mixed media collage on paper, 22" x 30" 

Another featured series, Public Notice, is the visual experiences of various techniques that the artist has explored. In this series, there is a predominant use of commercial labels from corrugated boxes, accentuating the artist's use of found and recycled materials that have been thrown away. According to Griffin, "The red line, featured in the series, is the continuity or the interconnectedness of all the pieces. Some of the works in the series are imagery inspired by visual artists like Basquiat or Twombly whose work I've studied in the past and others by my current contemporaries. Along with the artists, there are musicians and rhythm and blues vocalists' influences found throughout the series. The very first work evolved from a jazz composition entitled Concierto de Aranjuez, and it set the stage for the balance of the works to follow." 




Don Griffin, Acts of Dispensation (Public Notice Series),
2011, Mixed media collage on paper, 22" x 30"


Additional samples of Don Griffin's most current series of art work may be seen with accompanying descriptions at Baker Artist Awards. If you are interested in seeing more of Don Griffin's works or having specific questions answered, contact him at Donrgriff@aol.com.
  

ADDENDUM: African American Collections in Select Museums

Several additional museums, Akron Art Museum, Columbus Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Chrysler Museum of Art, and The Philadelphia Museum of Art, have been added to the Museum Collections page; the additional collections are listed under ADDENDUM: Museum Collections. To access, simply click on the page section, Museum Collections and scroll down to the ADDENDUM.

The museums listed on this page, Museum Collections, were selected  from a list of accredited art museums affiliated with the American Association of Museums. The list features those museums that include a searchable database that provides online access to their collections using the search term, "African American" as a descriptor. Enjoy! 

African American Collections within Select Museums

This is a short post to introduce a new page, Museum Collections, to the Black Art Project blog. Museum Collections will be continually updated to reflect collections with an African American art focus that have been identified in Galleries and Museums across the country. These institutions represent simply a few that are committed to showcasing the works by Black artists who are included in their overall collections.



The goal of Museum Collections is to make these images accessible to students, scholars, and the general public in order to encourage research and discussion on aspects of Black art and artists. This list in not comprehensive and is a work in progress that will expand as other institutions with online access to their collections have been identified. Not only is accessibility a key factor, but being able to search the collection with African American as a descriptor is crucial.

The following link is a sample of what is included on Museum Collections:

Savannah, Georgia

SCAD Museum of Art

The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art

(Under the list of selected works at the Website, click "Load more" to see other works of art.)

Jacob Lawrence, Library Series, The Schomburg,
Gouache on paper, 26" x 20"

The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art
(Under the list of selected works at the Website,
click "Load more" to see other works of art.)



Swann Galleries: African-American Fine Art, Sale 2255

Swann Auction Galleries' African-American Fine Art Sale 2255 on October 06, 2011 was the most successful auction over the past three years (February 2009 to present), bringing in $1,789,989 with Buyer's Premium, and selling approximately 75% of the lots. According to Nigel Freeman, Director of African-American Fine Art at Swann Galleries, “We are very pleased by the results of yesterday’s sale. We saw strong prices that reflect the quality and importance of the pieces featured in this auction, and a handful of new auction records for artists including Joseph Delaney and Loïs Mailou Jones.”

I was particularly pleased to see that Loïs Jones' "Marché de Kenscoff, Haiti", oil on canvas, 1962 which sold for $32,400, exceeding its high estimate of $18,000 set an auction record for the artist. This is an accomplishment that has been long overdue. Sale 2255 featured five paintings and watercolors from the estate of Loïs Mailou Jones, marking the first time works have been available at auction directly from her personal collection.

Also, it is worth noting that four lots in this Sale surpassed their high estimate and hit the six figure mark: Charles White, Work (Lot 61, crayon and charcoal on board, 1953, $306,00); Robert S. Duncanson, Untitled Landscape (Lot 1, oil on canvas, late 1850's, $120,000); Jacob Lawrence, two Untitled gouache paintings of Card Players, (Lot 30, panels from a folding screen, circa 1941-42, $108,000); and Hughie Lee-Smith, Desert Forms, (Lot 65, oil on masonite, 1957, $102,00). The price quotes reflect the buyer's premium. Images of these four lots follow:

 

Charles White, Work

Robert S. Duncanson, Untitled (Landscape)

Jacob Lawrence, Untitled  (gouache paintings)

Hughie Lee-Smith, Desert Forms

                                                                  
Although Sale 2255 was the most successful auction over the past three years, historically it has not been the largest nor the highest earning auction  over the period that Swann has sponsored the African American Fine Art Sale. Both in size of lots and earnings, the February 6, 2007 (Sale 2102) and February 19, 2008 (Sale 2136) were larger.

As I reflect on these Sales over the years, I am thankful that works by African American artists are more visible on the auction scene. This visibility has raised the awareness of African American artists to a larger audience in the artworld. Although some of the lots sold for prices below pre-sale estimates, offering buyers an opportunity of great deals, I wonder what impact the low selling prices will have on an artist's career? Even more so, what impact will a "no sale" have on the career of the contemporary artist? What are the factors that make the African American artists' works at auction seem to hover in the five figure range or lower when their contemporaries (non-African Americans) can more consistently command six figures and millions? If the aesthetic quality and content of a work between two artists are comparable, how much does patronage or curatorial sanction play in auction prices? What impact does low auction prices have on works of artists in existing private collections? How is African American art fitting into the larger auction-market trend? What are the lessons that collectors, artists, art historians, and art critics drawing from the current auction-market trends? The long and short of my queries focus on a value judgment; ...simply stated what makes an artwork valuable? 

Markets, and the art market is not an exception, are cyclical in nature and are determined by a number of variables, including prevailing public taste, supply and demand, quality, and the like. I remain optimistic that the monetary value of the work of African American artists will be realized over time; particularly,  as they become documented in major texts through comprehensive scholarship, become better known by curators and offered more opportunities for exhibitions in top-tier museums, and are included in more galleries that focus on representing and promoting their careers rather than simply selling their art. 

The artwork in these Sales are by important artists whose works are of immense value, even if that value is not consistently reflected in the realized prices at auction.  

Adrian Piper: Artist Talk

This post focuses on Cornered, an art installation, by conceptual artist Adrian Piper. For the purist, traditionally an art installation may not fit the definition of an artist talk; however, Cornered proves an exception to the rule, and fits appropriately into BAP's on-going series of "Artist Talks." 

As a conceptual artist, Adrian Piper introduces her ideas of race in  Cornered which is presented here in two parts of approximately 16 minutes. As Piper directly addresses viewers from a video monitor, many of them will probably begin to examine their values and behaviors relating to race. This examination may result in either self-defense or confession, questioning or affirming, agreeing or disagreeing, and etc with the ideas presented. 

"In conceptual art the idea or the concept is the most important aspect of the work...all planning and the decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes the machine that makes the art." Sol LeWitt

Further Readings on Conceptual Art:

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Art Story

Adrian Piper, Cornered, 1988. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. © 1988, Adrian Piper