Okay, we're sure you've noticed our silence lately. We admit to getting caught up in organizational matters for the past few months. But rest assured that we will be returning in the coming months with more of what our readers have come to expect--boundary-breaking black artists from around the world and their work. Check back in this space for more announcements.
And thanks for hanging in.
Administrative/Development Associate
Development Director
Village of Arts and Humanities (Philadelphia)
Campaign Manager
Director of Special Events
External Relations Associate
Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston)
Collaborative Community Site Program Manager
Studio in a School (New York)
Communications & Marketing Associate
Program Associate
Harlem School of the Arts (New York)
Development Associate
National Alliance for Musical Theatre (New York)
Grant Writer/Development Specialist
New Dance Group (New York)
Graphics Assistant
York College/CUNY (New York)
Landscape Architecture, Fresh Kills NYC PlaNYC 2030 Project
City of New York/Parks & Recreation
Manager of Digital Learning
Museum of Arts and Design (New York)
MFA Fund Officer
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)
Website Associate
Americans for the Arts (Washington, DC)
FUNDING
Cintas Fellowship Program (for creatives of Cuban Lineage)
Cintas Foundation
DEADLINE: January 14, 2008
EMPLOYERS: Send you FREE job listings to: info (at) codezonline (dot) com.
There is something curious about a brotha who calls himself "The Friendliest Black Artist in America." But then again, that is exactly what multi-disciplinary artist William Pope.L is all about. His new three-part installation at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, 'Art After White People: Time, Trees, & Celluloid...'—his first West Coast exhibit—is a bit of an enigma itself. "Am I following after a white model, i.e., in the trail of?" he asks. "Or is it 'after' in a sense of that which is obsolete?" These are the kinds of issues that have driven his work of pondering race and social constructs for nearly three decades. Take for instance his 'The Great White Way' performance where he spent five years crawling northbound from the Statue of Liberty up through Manhattan to the Bronx via Broadway sporting a capeless Superman costume with a skateboard strapped to his back. "In Western society," he explains, "we are given examples of the vertical: the rocket, the skyscraper…it's all about up. I want to contest and challenge that…I'm suggesting that just because a person is lying on the sidewalk doesn't mean they've given up their humanity."
So what then is 'Art After White People' all about? The three different parts—Grove, A Personal History of Videography (APHOV), and The Semen Pictures—each examine an aspect of American culture. In Grove is "an exploration of the social, psychological, and environmental consequences of human willfulness." A landscape eerily natural and artificial, a garden of palm trees covered in white paint glows in the dark room, filled with white tarps and boxes. The whiteness connotes both presence as well as void. Following Grove is APHOV, an examination at both performance and politics. The room is filled with an assortment of furniture surrounding a screen, with the image of a man in a Donald Rumsfeld Mask weeping blood—"a cinematic performance of performance, in a video about video." The exhibition ends with The Semen Pictures—collages of celebrity "portraits" interspersed with images of semen and hair, creating "veils" of both image and ultimately medium. Pope.L's commentary is patently conceptual, and at times obtuse, but ultimately it is that same curiosity that makes it so engaging.
'Art After White People: Time, Trees, & Celluloid…' is at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through December 23.
In the wake of society's calamities and what is and is not going on in current affairs, it appears that the whole world's gone mad, or-at the least-turned upside down. And the people seek solace from their raw reality, 'World Upside Down' at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Ontario provides recluse through a satirical observance of social models through visual art. Fifteen artists use a cultural and historical cocktail garnished with satire, to explore their own personal Jesus through playful pieces or introspection including self-potraits, performances and an off-site billboard project.
Exhibition curator Richard William Hill mentions imagining Soviet Supermen and killer rabbits, but what is really Alice-in-Wonderland are headless aristocrats donned in pseudo African fabric and present-day Queen Nanny icons. Exhibit artists to highlight include mixed-media artist and photographer Renee Cox and fine artist Yinka Shonibare. Cox's self-portraits include her self-portrayals through alter egos such Raje, a cultural ambassador clad in a liberation onesie and Queen Mammy of the Maroons, Jamaica's sole national female hero, an 18th century Maroon leader. With overt satire and seriousness, Cox's portraits portray herself-symbolic of what she is, was, strives to be and is expected to be, as a gently assimilated black woman. Turner Prize-nominee recognized for his fabrications of royalty, Yinka Shonibare uses "African" fabric, purchased in a London market, to create models of the British royal guard engaging in "common" behavior. Shonibare's use of fabric and postures seek to demonstrate that culture is a mere artificial construct-as is his work headless royalty on a unicycle. Albeit the unsavory social and political climate, 'World Upside Down' is a testament that real can really does recognize real.
World Upside Down, curated by Richard William Hill, is organized by the Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Center and in collaboration with the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and the Musée d'art de Joliette. 'World Upside Down' runs through February 17, 2008.
Arts/Entertainment/Special Projects Editor-Time.com (New York)
Time.com
http://www.time.com
Assistant Professor, Video Production
Department of Communication Arts
University of Washington-Madison
Campaign Manager
Director of Special Events
Institute of Contemporary Art Boston
http://www.icaboston.org
Media Educator (New York)
Global Action Project, Inc.
New Music / Video Opportunity
Vox Novus
Rights and Reproduction Administrator
Seattle Art Museum
CALL FOR ENTRY
11th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
Deadline: December 21, 2007
RESIDENCY
2008 Around the Coyote Spring Artist-in-Residence Program
Around the Coyote
Deadline: November 1, 2007
Demetrius Oliver is the hotness. The Studio Museum of Harlem knows this. His work was just taken down yesterday after the closing of he and his fellow artists in residence's exhibit, 'Midnight’s Daydream' on display since July. If you are one of those Yale kids who listens to your dean, Robert Storr, curator of 'Making Do', you probably checked for Oliver while he generated live shots in person from the October 15-22 at Yale's Green Hall Gallery. Oliver is one of five artists selected by the School of Art to create art "while making do with a given material of their choice". Perhaps you slept on him in favor of focusing on your mid-terms,you little Yaleys you,or simply were not in the area, fear not. Oliver's photography is still on display at Yale University's School of Art in New Haven until November 7.
What is Demetrius Oliver's work about? Think of his shots as if peering through Captain Nemo's telescopes on the Nautilus. Or maybe its what is under one of Frankenstein's microscopes? That is the thing with Oliver's images, half the time is spent deciphering the subject of the image and the latter identifying how to feel about the subject, image or sentiment in general. No, Oliver's work is not abstract, disconnected or intentionally meandering, but rather complex. And as a result, compelling. Light bulbs on a jacket considered art? Yes, bling of course. Thus the reason why it is difficult to look away? Words from art aficionados note that although the press failed to warm to Oliver's work at the Studio Museum of Harlem as they did to Wardell Milan's own personal Jesus-a must-respected and received piece-we are hoping the Yale community will provide more acknowledgement. For more of Oliver's complexities, check here and when you have finished pondering the five W's and H, check 'Making Do'.
REM sleep or Stage 5 sleep, is usually associated with dreaming-beautifully bizarre, random, or startlingly human-it produces a creative feed for granting it a second thought or a perhaps, a daydream. And a daydream is what swims to mind when viewing “Midnight’s Daydream”, an exhibit showcasing the Artists-in-Residence at the Studio Museum of Harlem.
Titus Kaphar’s works paints and conjures history while modeling after classic eighteen-century portraitist. Wardell Milan II cuts and pastes; using digital C-prints, magazine cutouts, as well as charcoal drawings, his work evokes a sentiment of yesterday-tomorrow and then today. Demetrius Oliver time travels using photography, sculpture as well as science, in relation to his objects and materials. Or yes, bacon and a tea kettle in “Almanac”.
All three artists’ recurrent dreams address and reflect upon history, race and the delicate notion of time and place. The three artists’ creation growth or expression is demonstrated in twenty-five works in drawing, mixed media, painting, photography and sculpture. “Midnight’s Daydream is at the Studio Museum of Harlem in New York through October 28.
Assistant Professor, African Art History & Visual Culture
Michigan State University
Assistant Professor, Video/Media Production
Program in Film and Media Culture
Middlebury College
Events Coordinator
Seattle Art Museum
Administrative Assistant
The Boston Museum
Web Designer
Center for History and New Media ( Washington DC)
Communications Coordinator
Whitney Museum of American Art
Education Program Coordinator
Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco)
Research Assistant
The Museum of Modern Art
FELLOWSHIP
MacDowell Fellowship
Deadline: See website for more information
CALL FOR ENTRIES
2008 Langston Hughes African American Film Festival
EMPLOYERS: Send you FREE job listings to: info (at) codezonline (dot) com.
In Britain, October is more than the ninth month of the year, but boasts the opening exhibit for the Turner Prize finalists short-listed for the award. For the first time in its 23-year, the four selected artists- Zarina Bhimji, Nathan Coley, Mike Nelson and Mark Wallinger- will have their work showcased in Liverpool, versus London. Conversely, the Tate Britain with host a retrospective exhibit of past Tate winners in London. This year architecture, film and photography are the highlighted mediums where influential judges will select a rising architect, filmmaker or photographer while nominees’ works reflect or predict the state of art in Britain.
The Turner Prize, an annual prize presented to a British artist, is organized by the Tate Gallery and has evolved into the Britain’s most prestigiously-publicized award. In addition to the prestige and £40,000 cash award, potential awardees' works are oftentimes subversive, testing the boundaries and raising the question of what is art and who decides. The 2007 deciders include Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum, Harlem; Fiona Bradley, Director of the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Michael Bracewell, critic and writer and Miranda Sawyer, writer and broadcaster.
Nominees, such as Zarina Bhimji, a Ugandan photographer and filmmaker, draw particular attention to the conversation of what is British art. Bhimji’s 'Out of Blue', documents images of Uganda’s lush greenery and splendor coupled with its history of expulsion and exile as a background. Bhimji’s film and other works address political and social strife, in the form of emotions, or lack of. Her work is expressive and melancholic, including ambitious themes of redemption for self and society. As a Tate nominee, Bhimji’s historical context and imagery meld appropriately within Britain’s historical and social fabric, as many expelled Ugandans immigrated to Britain in the early 1970s. With or without the award, artists and judges alike gain substantial attention and recognition on the strength of their involvement in the process.
Spaces and places and exploration exist in more than Jazzanova cuts and the musings of Dr. Seuss tales, but also surface when surveying the architecture of David Adjaye. Adjaye, a Ghananian architect and advocate of public space for collective consumption and appreciation, is one of Britain's freshest starchitects, prompting the world of architecture to make room for his force, ideas and topology. The Studio Museum of Harlem hosts several of Adjaye's samplings during his first solo exhibit in the United States, "Making Public Buildings". The exhibit introduces American audiences to Royal College of Art–trained architect most recent commissions and completed works like the The Idea Store in the London and Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, but also initiates the discussion, or at least the acknowledgement, of scant diversity seen in major architecture.
"Making Public Buildings" invites the American audiences to experience several of Adjaye's works from concept to conception through full-scale schematic models and renderings, noting how he draws inspiration from African architecture and capital cities as platforms, or sentiments for public space. Adjaye's models, often accompanied by an analogous African image, model or sculpture, demonstrate reference points for his buildings-simple at the initial glance, but continuous and dimensional upon further examination. Adjaye’s ability to translate a client’s concept from idea to institution, while working within the environmental context is the force that deems him a desirable candidate for public commissions exhibited within the exhibit, as well as private homes and studios.
The exhibit displays recent projects like the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham, Rivington Place in London and the Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford, noting a shift in Britain honors diversity. All three highlighted structures possess an African-British component explicit within its purpose, mission and even architect-Daid Adjaye. Although Adjaye refuses to allow his recently acquired commissions to pigeonhole him into tokenism, the lack of competition merits acknowledging the absence of diversity and evaluating how diversity can be demonstrated within public space.
“Making Public Buildings” continues at the Studio Museum of Harlem through October 28. Adjaye’s first American public space, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver is open for the public on October 28.
