Every once in a while, something strikes us in such a way that we just have to highlight it even though it's already passed. Like this for example:
The discussion of the world's multifaceted attraction to or love/hate relationship with the Black body will always be relevant as long as the Black body continues to be portrayed and projected from a manipulative standpoint. That's why we are glad that Temple University in Philly has chosen a group of artists and scholars to de-tangle the issues associated with the Black body.
Curated with visual artist, collagist, painter, Sophie Sanders, From Taboo to Icon: Images of the Black Body was a town-hall meeting, if you will, of artists who reflected on the racial implications of the Black body in contemporary art. Hosted by Temple University's Tyler School of Art, the panel was charged with honing in on this topic specifically from an African diasporic -based point of view. Panel members included Naomi Beckwith, Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania; Allan L. Edmunds, artist, educator, founder and president, Brandywine Workshop; Lonnie Graham, artist, cultural activist and professor of visual art, Pennsylvania State University; Emily Hage, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow of Modern and Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Deborah Willis, artist, scholar, chair and professor of photography and imaging, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. The panel was moderated by Dr. Susanna Gold, art history professor at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and is part of the African Impressions / Contemporary Art symposium series.
Comments
great info, but the image is hella awkward. wasn't it from deb's body builder series? ...much more interesting/arresting if you used the ENTIRE image rather than a detail. the image alone provides an interesting discussion on the black female body and how it continues to be segemented--even in the context of a black visual culture publication.
I think you aren't the only one who feels this way... I have to imagine this awkwardness or problematizing was intentional on the part of the conference organizers, however, as they were the ones who selected that detail. (Personally, it's news to me that it's a detail.)
Still, as the detail floats further and further away from its original context and gets framed and reframed and reframed, maybe in that process alone, it becomes more exploitive. Not sure.
I'm hoping our art director will chime in--did you know that was not the entire image?
Um, is that the name is the post, LAB? I think it was called Body Revolution...
interesting point...booty revolution...damn, gina?!?!!
Check out this show:
Hoes, Putas, and Dragon Ladies: Our Sexuality ReMixed
Chashama Gallery, 112 West 44th Street
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Hoes, Putas, and Dragon Ladies: Our Sexuality ReMixed is a multimedia
exhibit featuring film, performance, visual art, and readings for Women's History Month at The Chashama Gallery and The New School for Social Research in NYC. The objective of the exhibit is to examine, consider, reveal and comment on sexuality and sexual representations of women of African, Latin and Asian decent by women of color artists.