Arcibald Motley: A Stroll, Parts 1 and 2

Premier Modernist       Improvising       Break with Academic Tradition

 

Transgressive Elements       Modern Artistic Statement    

Bronzeville       Black Urban Living       Urban Nocturnes

Painter Laureate of the Black Modern Cityscape  

Exhibition: 
Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist on view June 14 through September 7, 2014 @ Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist on view October 19, 2014 through February 1, 2015 @ LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist

Exhibition: From the Ashes, Rebirth of the Human Spirit

Akili Ron Anderson      Anne Bouie      Daniel T. Brooking      

Adjoa Burrowes    Elsa Gebreyesus      Carolyn Goodridge      

Claudia Aziza Gibson-Hunter    Hubert Jackson      Wayson Jones      

 Michael Platt      Russell Simmons    Alec Simpson

Coming Soon: An art exhibition, "From the Ashes: Rebirth of the Human Spirit, featuring artists from the artist group: Black Artists of DC (BADC). The opening reception is on Saturday, February 15, 2014 at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery at 702 Eighth Street, NW, Washington, D.C. Meet the exhibiting artists at the reception.

Select African American Art Exhibitions: Fall Highlights for 2013

This highlight features a few exhibitions that are either opening or will still be on view in the the fall of 2013. Presenting the exhibitions as they approach their opening dates or shortly after opening, assures a freshness and currency of information for visual art enthusiasts. A number of important traveling exhibitions that opened earlier in the year are still being featured across the country and are accessible from the Blog page entitled: Select Art Exhibitions in 2013. This page is updated on a weekly basis by either adding newly discovered exhibitions or removing those that are approaching their expiration date. Its intent is to provide comprehensive coverage of current ongoing exhibitions on view for the current quarter of the year.

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.

Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn Museum

Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972). Riding Death in My Sleep, 2002. Ink and collage on paper, 60" x 44". Collection of Peter Norton, New York. © Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey will be on view in the Elizabeth Sackler

Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum from October 11, 2013 through

March 9, 2014. This is Wangechi Mutu’s first survey in the United States; it is

the most comprehensive and innovative show yet for this internationally renowned, multidisciplinary artist.

More than 50 works from the mid-1990s to the present, including collage, drawing, sculpture, installation and video are featured in Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey. The exhibition features many of the artist’s most iconic collages drawn from major international collections, rarely seen early works and new creations. 

A richly illustrated, full-color catalogue accompanies the exhibition Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey.

College Park, Maryland

University of Maryland

The David C. Driskell Center

Alison Saar, Weight, 2012, Fiberglass, wood, rope, cotton scale and miscellaneous objects, 80"x 65"x 24".
© Alison Saar, 2013. Image courtesy of LA Louver Gallery, Venice, CA.

Alison Saar: STILL..., a collection of 11 sculptures created by artist Alison Saar, includes works from 2010 to 2012 and combines the ruggedness of nature with solid structure; the exhibition includes four never-exhibited works and six new pieces. Alison Saar: STILL... will be on view at the David Driskell Center from September 12 through December 13, 2013.

Alison Saar’s work is deeply tied to her multiracial heritage, and it is through this lens which she so strikingly captures the human spirit. Through her sculptures, she displays the primal intensity of people underlying the civility of everyday life. Saar scrutinizes bigotry and historical burdens and portrays these concepts through a visual and kinesthetic tension, such as in the powerful piece titled Weight that shows a young black girl on a swing, weighed down with shackles, a lock and key, boxing gloves and other assorted items on a cotton scale. "Combining African art and ritual, Greek mythology, and German aspects of expressionism, Saar challenges stereotypes and offers an indictment of human discrimination." SEE more images from Alison Saar: STILL....

A catalogue accompanies this exhibition.

  Ithaca, New York

 Cornell University

 Johnson Museum of Art

Laylah Ali, Untitled, 2000, gouache and pencil on paper, Collection of Susan Greenberg Minster. Photo courtesy of the artist

Johnson Museum of Art presents Laylah Ali: The Greenheads Series. The exhibition will be on view September 14 through December 22, 2013. The Greenheads series - created between 1996 and 2005- will be shown as a comprehensive body of work. Over forty of these gouache paintings from a total of more than eighty have been gathered from collections to chronicle the series' development.

Laylah Ali: The Greenheads Series "chronicle the development of her dramatis personae—thin, round-headed two-dimensional beings of indeterminate sex and race—who anticipate, respond to, or enact unseen power struggles." The exhibition will allow viewers to examine the evolution of Ali’s series.

Madison, Wisconsin

University of Wisconsin–Madison Campus

Chazen Museum of Art

Romare Bearden (1912–1988), Cattle of the Sun God, 1977, collage, © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York. Courtesy Ann and Sheldon Vogel

Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey, featuring approximately 50 works, will be on view through November 24, 2013 at the Chazen Museum of Art. The museum will also organize extensive educational and community programming in conjunction with the exhibition. "In 1977, Romare Bearden created a series of collages and watercolors based on Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. Rich in symbolism and allegorical content, Bearden’s Odyssey series bridged classical mythology and African American culture. The series conveyed timelessness and the universality of the human condition, but was displayed for only two months in New York City before the works went to private collections and public art museums."

Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in cooperation with the Romare Bearden Foundation and Estate and DC Moore Gallery. It was curated by English and jazz scholar Robert G. O’Meally, the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature and founder and former director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. 

SEE exhibition related programs. A catalogue accompanies this exhibition.

 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Barbara Chase-Riboud, American, born 1939, All That Rises Must Converge / Red, 2008. Red bronze, silk, cotton, and synthetic fibers, 74 1/2" x 42" x 28", Base: 23 1/2" x 17 5/8". Courtesy of the Artist.

Barbara Chase-Riboud: The Malcolm X Steles will be on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from September 14, 2013 through January 20, 2014. The exhibition will bring together more than forty works from the United States and Europe that examine Barbara Chase-Riboud’s artistic career, focusing primarily on her important Malcolm X sculptures. See this exhibition in the following galleries: 172, 173, Alter Gallery 176, and Great Stair Hall.

Chase-Riboud’s sculptures dedicated to Malcolm X have been likened to contemporary interpretations of the steles erected in various parts of the ancient world to commemorate important people and events. Cast from cut and folded sheets of wax, the sculptures combine bronze, manipulated into undulating folds and crevices, with knotted and braided silk and wool fiber. 

The artist developed the first four sculptures in this series in 1969, inspired by the civil rights movement and her political and personal experiences living in France and traveling to North Africa, China, and the Soviet Union. Chase-Riboud returned to the series in 2003 and again in 2007–8, creating a total of nine additional works. Reconciling vertical and horizontal, mineral and organic, light and dark, the artist has forged in the Malcolm X steles powerful beacons dedicated to the possibility of cultural integration.

There is a catalogue, Barbara Chase-Riboud: The Malcolm X Steles, offering insightful assessments of the works in the exhibition and includes the artist's reflections in her own voice on her oeuvre. 

 Sacramento, California
Crocker Art Museum

 

Kara Walker, Untitled (Scene #5 from Emancipation Approximation portfolio), 1999–2000. Screenprint on paper, (7/20),   44" x 34".

Emancipating the Past: Kara Walker's Tales of Slavery and Power will be on view September 22, 2013 through January 5, 2014 at the Crocker Art Museum. 

Featuring 60 objects from the collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, the exhibition demonstrates the artistic approach Walker takes to subject matter, historical narrative, and the complexities and ambiguities of racial and historical representation. To make her pursuit compelling, Walker radically reinvented the 19th-century silhouette portrait, elevating the practice of tracing onto and cutting out black paper figures into a formidable, grand format for her "nightmarish fictions."  

The graphic nature of the artist's work, both in content and format, moves from the wall to moving picture in this presentation of silhouettes, drawings, prints, and video. As race remains one of the most difficult conversations to have in America, this exhibition is especially timely amid the discourse on race today, 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. 

St. Louis, Missouri

Washington University in St. Louis

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

        

Rashid Johnson, Self Portrait Laying on Jack Johnson's Grave, 2006.

Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks is the first major solo museum exhibition to survey the career of this Chicago-born, New York-based artist. Featured in the Kemper Museum's Ebsworth Gallery, the exhibition will be on view September 20, 2013 - January 6, 2014.  Message to Our Folks, titled after a 1969 album by avant-garde jazz collective Art Ensemble of Chicago, the exhibition examines how Johnson's work has developed over the first fourteen years of his career.

"Johnson incorporates commonplace objects from his childhood into his work in a process he describes as hijacking the domestic. He transforms these materials—plants, books, record albums, photographs, shea butter, soap—into conceptually loaded and visually compelling art that investigates the construction of identity. Steeped in individual experience while invoking shared cultural references, Johnson's work also calls upon black American creative and intellectual figures, extending the legacy of these cultural icons."

A fully illustrated catalog, the most comprehensive documentation of Johnson’s work to date, accompanies the exhibition.  

Venice, California 

L A Louver Gallery 

Alison, Saar, The Cotton Eater study (sugar sack shroud series), 2013
found sugar sacks, gesso, charcoal and graphite, 81" x 37". Image courtesy L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.

Alison Saar: Slough, featuring new sculptures and drawings created in 2013, will be on view at L A Louver Gallery from September 3 through October 5, 2013. The title of the exhibition, Slough, is defined as "a situation characterized by lack of progress," or "to cast off or shed dead skin." It is this duality of meaning, and a sense of both impasse and renewal, that pervades the 15 new works in the exhibition.

The Cotton Eater Study (sugar sack shroud series) is a large drawing measuring 81 x 37 inches rendered with charcoal and graphite on found cotton sugar sacks. This and other drawings on cotton panels from the sugar sack shroud series are on view in the exhibition. Another of those drawings, Backwater Blues, "which Saar created in New Orleans during her fellowship at the Joan Mitchell Foundation in April 2013. Dismayed by the lack of progress following the tragedy of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Backwater Blues illustrates a woman clothed in a sheer slip gazing back as water rises above her ankles. Framed by a found screen door, the drawing sheds light on the media’s voyeuristic coverage of the devastation  following the hurricane, where footage of victims often disheveled and undressed, were broadcast without any regard for their dignity."

Call for Artists / Annual Black Artists of DC (BADC) Exhibit at District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC)

FOCUS GROUP: Four Walls, Four Women, One Show is the theme for the 2010 annual exhibit sponsored by BADC and DCAC. This call for artists is open to female artists working in all media; its deadline for submission is Monday, August 30, 2010. The exhibition will run November 19, 2010 through January 9, 2011.

As stated in their announcement, "The Black Artists of DC is seeking to spark a visual discussion between artworks created by Black women, and a verbal dialogue between those that view and purchase them. The topic of discussion is material. What are you using? What materials do you feel yourself drawn to? And how does Black femininity affect or reflect itself in the materials you choose, if at all? How does femininity affect the delivery and/or reception of your message? What emotional relationship do you form with the objects and substances used to build your works?

In this exhibition, the voices of women artists will be spoken primarily in material form. Purposefully, only four artists will be selected to participate, in order to strengthen an intimate focus on each individual voice. From both visual and verbal discussion, we hope to determine how effectively our material languages are deciphered, valued, appreciated, or acquired by a universal audience and market."

For an application, submission guidelines, processes, payment, sales, and etc., contact Zoma Wallace at zoma.wallace@gmail.com.
Visit DCAC at: http://www.dcartscenter.org/.

Milton 510 and the FIVE TEN EXPERIENCE

Between activities celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States  (January 2009), I had an opportunity to spend an afternoon with the artist, Milton Bowens (Milton510). It was during this very engaging and issue-filled conversation, on that afternoon, that I was given a verbal outline of what to expect with the upcoming Five Ten Experience project which would prove to be an ambitious undertaking. 

According to Milton, "this project has been a long time coming, and the thoughts have floated in my mind for the past three years." It was obvious from that initial exchange in January 2009 that Milton had given the Five Ten Experience much thought, and the details had been edited in his head, if not yet put on paper. As he spoke, I could see the birth of the ...EXPERIENCE being masterfully created to its finest. The concept of the five simultaneously curated exhibitions were clearly defined; themes for each of those exhibitions were mentioned with the importance of each and how the separate parts would roll-out as a unified whole; which venues would be involved was sketchy at that moment, but ideas were thrown out. The need for funding was discussed and possible alternatives to approach that end were mentioned. The five exhibitions, an educational component, development of an artist statement for each exhibition, and documentation of the events were all elements of the plan. The finished product would require the artist to complete enough work to accommodate five distinct shows; in addition, to collaborating with a host of other individuals, businesses, and organizations to develop a series of artist talks and any other supporting programs; creating a marketing strategy; dealing with contractual obligations; and any other necessary details for the ultimate success of the exhibitions. Concepts, ideas, and strategies were clearly formulated.

The concept of this project to partner with 5 venues is deeply layered. As Milton explains, "May being the fifth calendar month of 2010 is synonymous with the personal brand Milton 510 that Eye, as an Artist, worked extremely hard to establish. Instead of doing the traditional retrospective, Eye chose to do a new very personal yet universal celebration. Truly the first artistic event of its kind, this ground breaking exhibition is not to be viewed as merely 5 separate shows. It was conceived and intended to be engaged as one multi-layered experience."

Moving fast-forward, fifteen (15) months later from our January 2009 discussion, the dream and plans of the EXPERIENCE have become a reality. The Milton 510 and the Five Ten Experience is a realized comprehensive exhibition of 5 series of New Works that make up one fine art collection to be presented in Northern California during May 2010: “Oakland-A Love Supreme,” “Echoes of the Sweetest Sound,” “The Memoirs of Mr. Radio,” “Soul in Acrylic Stereo,” and “Oh Happy Sundays”.  As Milton states in his exhibition statement, "the 5 partnering venues for this experience will bring together more than 50 new works forming one of the most unique surveys of urban culture, community, family and faith ever mounted by a single artist for a single show."

This is an art event that can only happen once in a Century and the five selected venues present five new fine art series simultaneously: 

MILTON 510 and the FIVE TEN

EXPERIENCE 

May 1st

May 8th

May 15th

May 22nd

May 29th

 

For further details, including an artist statement for each of the exhibitions, and samples of the artist's work, follow this link: http://www.milton510.com/index1.html.

The Silent Voice that Roars / by Max Eternity, Guest Writer

As I stood in the midst of 4 rooms filled with works of art, all created by women, The Silent Voice that Roars, that’s what came to mind. I was attending the opening night reception of an exhibition at AVISCA fine art gallery, entitled "A Woman's Work."

Located in suburban Atlanta, the venue--owned and operated by women, whose director is Byrma Braham, a native of Jamaica--is a contemporary fine art gallery specializing in artworks created by black artist in the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean. In this month--Women's History Month--such an eclectic show hosted in a uniquely intimate, elegant space, bears testament to the will of women of color--their ability to survive, create, contemplate and celebrate. 

April Harrison, "Side by Side"

Take for instance South Carolina native, April Harrison. The three pieces that she’s exhibiting are mixed-media paintings in acrylic, watercolor, magazine print, old coins and other conjured material, featuring women and young girls unafraid to express their autonomy, independence and sass. The ladies depicted in Harrison's creations are a perfect parallel to her sophisticated use of substrate--a complex layering of paint on canvas with appliqués in found objects, re-purposed as funky belt buckles, earrings and necklaces.

April Harrison's "Satisfied" (Detail)

Harrison's aesthetic is a rather painterly form of realism built upon figural stylizations that echo high-art illustrations, whereupon the shape of each person in her portraits are painted in a perspective, so that the women and girls framed within are deliberately placed well above the expected horizon, thus directing the eye of each viewer to gaze upward at the inspiring, color-filled bodies and faces. Through the hand of the artist, a relationship between gazer and subject matter easily develops, inviting admirers to experience a welcoming presence of humble grandeur, dignity and beauty. Of the women who have inspired Harrison throughout her life, she says "women contribute so much to society, yet they are expected to be silent...still, the powerful imprint of women is everywhere, as mothers, leaders, innovators and pioneers."           

“Grace under Pressure” by Teri Richardson

Hanging from above or suspended upon a wall, Teri Richardson’s sculptural collages in recycled denim capture the imagination, as does the Modern-esque paintings of Grace Kisa, whose harmonized, color-field abstractions in 2-D seem a lovely, visual throwback to the palette and playfulness of Jean Miro—also taking design cues from the carved massings of Dame Barbara Hepworth.

Grace Kiza, "One Last Victory"

Yet even in the more abstract works, so much of the narrative seen in this thoughtfully-curated collection of sculpture, mix-media, paintings, drawings and prints, is exactly like the real-life narrative of everyday women who often ask themselves, am I beautiful enough, where do I fit in, do I have a right to be heard, why am I judged by the way I look, not the way I am, and why can’t I be intelligent, pretty AND strong?


One exhibitor who has answers to many of these questions is D. Lammie-Hanson, a multi-disciplined artist born and raised in Harlem, New York. In her artist statement she says “My approach to most of the work that I create is a cross between socio-psychology experiment and storytelling. I focus on the beauty of womanhood without the traditional superficial trappings of appearance. In my paintings, I try to capture the woman’s true light… her personality and her soul.”

   

D. Lammie Hanson, "Upward Thoughts"

 
This is exactly what she does in a large 42in x 42in painting rendered on recycled tarp. In the painting, bubbling monochromatic color swirls about—baby blue to a more electric hue—coming together to form the face of a delightfully, beautiful woman. With an elegant dancer’s neck, the woman’s head gently arches to the side, expressing all at once, a state of sorrow, love, meditation, understanding and bliss. Looking it over, I see a soul laid bare, residing in a place of knowing.


The piece is called “Upward Thoughts.”

Another woman whose work caught my eye is Jean Chiang, a Chinese-American. Chiang sews lines of colored beads on canvas, which are patterned in an orchestrated fashion, reminiscent of abacus arrangements. Like Hanson, Chiang is also from New York, having grown up in the back of a Chinese Laundry.

Jean Chiang, "How Many Times 

I was a bit confused when I first saw Chiang’s work, and I couldn’t get over the attentiveness to the detail in each of the pieces—the stillness and the silence--until I discovered that she has an interest in architecture, anthropology and archaeology. Then it all made sense, the way she constructs “historical” micro-sites, literally weaving and building her paintings as discovered artifacts, grounding each into a place of permanence. The work is here and now, but it also informs of some mysterious past. So evident is this in her diptych entitled “Inner Landscape”, created from acrylic, embroidery and beading on canvas.


What a beautiful contemplation.

And that’s just it; the lights are on, shining bright, but not glaring. Wisdom is in all these exhibiting women’s minds, such as Zoya Taylor who paints her women proportioned as dolls—oversized heads with expressive world-weary, saucer-sized eyes of elders. Taylor’s take on the human imagination is that “We all have a cast of characters that define our lives…personal demons or angels--spiritual or not, there’s a commonality in these characters. They draw on human themes of secrecy, pride and hurt, but also humor and love.”

Zoya Taylor, "Always a Bridesmaid"

Contact AVISCA at 770.977.2732, or visit online at http://www.aviscafineart.com/. “A Woman’s Work” runs through April 9th, 2010.

Guest Writer:

Max Eternity, Editor and Publisher of Art Digital Magazine and contributing writer to Artworks Magazine, is a polymath who creates innovative print types reflecting the Bauhaus and Mid-Century Modernism. Via a network of informational web portals, he advocates for artistic and social concerns ranging from architectural preservation and digital literacy to government transparency and the Afro-Euro fine art construct. Eternity is the author of the successful 17-page nomination of Marcel Breuer’s final architectural design--the Atlanta-Fulton Central Public Library--to the World Monuments Fund, making that site the youngest building to be placed on their registry. In 2008, Eternity exhibited at Atlanta’s City Gallery East in the “Pin-up” show. Also that year he exhibited in Beijing, China, in a group show at the Haun Tie Museum. In July 2010 he will exhibit in a touring exhibition entitled "Homage", to be launched at The California Art Institute at San Diego. Contact Max at eternityatlanta@gmail.com