Voila. A word uttered after the legerdemain dazzles the audience with some spoof or light-of-the-hand heist, or when witnessing Delphine Diaw Diallo’s visual mecca back to Senegal. Magic Studio Photo, Diallo’s premier exhibit at Brooklyn boutique Harriet’s Alter Ego, explores Diallo’s Senegalese lineage with the visceral beauty of acknowledgement, family, love and discovery within an African context.
The concept of the Magic Photo Studio began as a personal project in Senegal where she sought to recapture her Senegalese family blood to “keep the family images alive for her child to remember the African in her blood.” In an abstract 20-minute video and more than 15 images of Diallo’s family, Diallo infuses stark colors, weathered images and negatives; pencil, paint and memories, into black and white prints, reminding the once non-believers of the initial Magic Photo Studio of Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe’s Bamako era that the eternity captured in an image is truly magic and supernatural. Like Keita and Sidibe, Diallo’s images are definitive, allowing the subject to tell his or her unique story.
Diallo, a Paris-bred graphic artist relocated to New York less than a year ago after becoming exhausted with the graphic design for music production scene in France and its overall lack of creative outlet, especially for the young Arab and African community. Diallo hopes the exhibit captures the natural beauty and timelessness of Africanism in hopes of “changing people’s image of Africa and not to focus on the exotic.” Diallo’s mosaic denies Afro-pessimism, but embraces the silent sense of security and realism found when reconnecting with family. With magical permanence and grace, Diallo’s work leaves a feeling of curiosity and wonderment, or how did she do that?
Magic Photo Studio is at Harriet’s Alter Ego in New York through June 3.
Okay so we're working on a boatload of new features and stories for you, our loyal readers, plus painting the office and generally standing in the midst of much disarray at the moment. We'll be posting occasionally in the interim with a return to our full daily updates on June 4th.
See ya soon...
We've been alerted to under-the-radar curator Heather-Marie Davis and now note her new show The Occidental Artist at NURTUREart in the still white-hot Williamsburg area of Brooklyn.
Davis, an independent curator and artist in her own right, teaches at the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia and has been hitting on themes of exoticization, dislocation, racial stereotypes, and disobedience for the past several years. Says Davis, "My work is a result of internal family racism, reactionary revolutions, interracial relationships, and miscegenation." Davis holds an MA from SAIC and has been curating in small venues since 2002.
The Occidental Artist treats similar themes, specifically focusing on artists who reference cultures outside of their own ancestral or personal identity. The artists in this exhibition are Aileen Bassis, Katherine Daniels, Yuji Hiratsuka, Tamar Hirschl, Vandana Jain, Jason Lujan, Franky Laude, Alice Mizrachi, Sophie Sanders, and Karen Tam. This exhibition is a NUTUREart Emerging Curators' Program collaboration and runs through June 10.
British Museum (London)
Curator of African Collections (Word Doc)
California African American Museum
Museum Curator I for Gallery Services (Word Doc)
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Associate Director of Communications
We've recently learned about AdColor, a collaboration of 5 leading US ad agencies that have joined forces to promote racial diversity in the marketing, media, and advertising industries. Recent similar efforts by AIGA, the professional organization of graphic designers, seem to signal a heightened awareness of racial issues in the advertising and media industries. The five founding members of AdColor are Ad Club NY, the Association of National Advertisers, the American Advertising Federation, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and Arnold Worldwide.
Media folks love handing out awards, so we're not surprised that one of the first initiatives is the AdColor Awards, a program that, according to the organization "will honor outstanding diverse professionals at the junior, mid and senior levels in each segment of our industry." The awards are scheduled to take place on 4 November in Miami.
We note on the Awards Steering Committee: Shante Bacon and Saptosa Foster of the 135th Street Agency, Toni Thompson,
multicultural program developer and recruiter at McCann Erickson, and Cynthia Perkins-Roberts, VP of diversity marketing and business development at Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau.
Jean Michel Basquiat's seminal work "Untitled" from 1981 is one of several modern masterpieces set to go on the auction block at Sotheby's in New York in its spring evening sale of contemporary art on May 15. Other works in the sale include paintings by Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.
The Basquiat work comes from the artist's early so-called "graffiti period" as his notoriety as the wild child of the downtown art scene was taking hold. The painting combines spray paint, acrylic, and oilstick and is generally considered a self portrait. Although Sotheby's claims 1981 to be a watershed year for Basquiat, we note that his early graffiti period in fact began in earnest in 1980 and continued through 1982.
The Basquiat painting is being sold by The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (which owns two major Basquiats) to create the Barbara and Eugene Schwartz Contemporary Art Acquisition Endowment Fund. The Schwartzes gifted the painting to the museum in 1985. Pre-auction estimate on the painting is $6 to $8 million (US), which if attained would shatter the previous auction record of $5.5 million for a Basquiat.
In our ongoing salute to Code Z's outstanding volunteer staff, we decided it was time to show some love to one of our OE's (Original Editors).
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn came aboard Code Z before our launch last August and has been writing for the Z ever since. She is a self-taught photographer who is very active in the New York art scene. She received her first official assignment as a photographer, The Million Woman March, at the age of 17 in 1997. Since then, her images have been published and exhibited in several art spaces such as the Latin Collector Gallery, The Museum of Contemporary Art DC, and Danny Simmons' Corridor Gallery where her work is currently on view. Her photography has been included in the photo-anthology, BLACK: A Celebration of a Culture, co-published by the Smithsonian and edited by Deborah Willis, and privately collected by art enthusiasts and collectors.
Although she enjoys the art of photography, her first love is essay writing and creative non-fiction. As a writer, she has been on assignment in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, covering jazz and the arts. Her journalism has appeared in Vibe, The Source, America, Complex, Essence and other publications. Last year the Jazz Journalism Association awarded her the Atkins Fellowship for jazz journalism. Her essay "Moving On" was included in the anthology My Soul to His Spirit. Laylah is a native New Yorker residing in Brooklyn.
Penn State University
Art Historian (African specialty)
Brooklyn Museum
Curator of Egyptian art
August Wilson Center for African American Culture (Pittsburgh)
Marketing and Communications Associate
The African American Museum in Philadelphia
Archivist-part time
Studio Museum in Harlem
Education & Public Programs Internship
Director's Office Internship
Finance Internship
Curatorial Internship
Black Entertainment Television
Client Service Manager- Ad Sales
Administrative Assistant Ad Sales
It's no coincidence that we chose Dwayne McDuffie to be the face of Code Z for May. The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention opens later this month in Philadelphia, and Dwayne is among the Guests of Honor who will be appearing at the Convention. Plus we're down with jumping on the Black comics bandwagon that has taken off in the last several years.
ECBACC began in 2002 (always held in May) and has continued under the steam of organizers Maurice P. Waters, Turtel Onli, William H. Foster III, and Jerry Craft. The goals of this year's ECBACC include promoting youth literacy and providing prominent showcases for Black writers and artists.
We note 4 workshops of interest:
* "Cartooning is Serious Business"--How to make a living as a cartoonist with Keith Knight of The K Chronicles and (th)ink.
* "Digital Technology for Liberation Artistry"--Payment, distribution, and protection of artwork with Chicago-based poet, historian, and author Gregory L. Walker.
* "Printing Comic Books and Graphic Novels Overseas"--Printing full-color publications in Asia with Robert V. Sofia-Conte of Regent Publishing Services Limited.
* "Breaking in as a Writer"--Real-world information for beginning level writers new to the business with writer Brandon M. Easton.
Last we checked, ECBACC is still looking for volunteers over the age of 18 to help with set up, registration, and workshops. ECBACC runs May 18 and May 19.
Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu is scheduled to appear at SCAD Atlanta on May 15 in conjunction with her solo exhibition at the ACA Gallery of SCAD opening later this week. We've been noting Wangechi since her graduation from the Yale MFA program in 2000 and have tailed her recent artistic expansions into video and installation work.
The SCAD exhibition, titled The Cinderella Curse, uses all the various media for which she has become known and is described by the school as "a parody of the Cinderella story, [in which] Mutu explores the inhumane conditions that often accompany women’s labor." The work comprises a site-specific installation that includes a series of mixed-media collages that use the mottled surface of the gallery walls, stacks of clothing and a video in which the subject tirelessly cleans the earth.
Wangechi examines issues of race, class, gender and African politics from an outsider's point of view, and says that her work "describes the beauty and survival capabilities of the human imagination which outlives assaulted cultures, transplantation, exile, and shifts in philosophical paradigms."
Wangechi's work has fetched up to $88,000 (US) at auction, and she lives and works in New York City. The Cinderella Curse runs from May 9 through June 24.
All month long Code Z will be continuing to highlight our stellar volunteers and staff.
Makeba G. Dixon-Hill has been serving as the Managing Editor at Code Z since September of 2006. We remember courting her for the position based on her thorough knowledge of art and her many contacts among arts writers. This turned out to come in handy as Makeba's job entails talking to Code Z writers day in and day out about all areas of visual culture.
Hard as it is to believe, Makeba also has a life outside of Code Z. Her days are spent as the Curatorial Assistant at the Spelman Museum of Fine Art, but that venture offers only a small sample of the avenues where she has channeled her talents and enthusiasm for the arts. From 2003 to 2006, for example, Makeba served as the Education and Public Programs Coordinator at the Studio Museum where she assisted in the development and implementation of adult programs.
After graduating with degrees in English and Art History from Spelman College in 2003, she participated in the first annual David C. Driskell Summer Arts Institute for the study of the arts in the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also a freelance writer who has contributed to various visual and literary arts publications.
What's down the road for Makeba? She describes her commitment to goal setting as a continuous journey of what she wants to do both in the present and in the future. The next stage in her journey will soon take her to Chicago, to pursue her masters degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in Arts Adminstration.
We offer a hearty and heartfelt thank you to Makeba for all her hard work at Code Z!
Audio/Visual Assistant
Massachusetts Cultural Council
Production Manager
Alonzo King's LINES Ballet (San Francisco)
Education Coordinator
Bronx River Art Center
Curatorial Intern
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School
Part-Time Cultural Workspace Outreach
NYC Performing Arts Spaces/Exploring the Metropolis
Executive Director
Independent Arts Collaborative (Houston)
Office Administrator
Independent Curators International (iCI)
Art Handler
NYC Contemporary Art Gallery
Project Coordinator
Pomegranate Arts (NYC)
Theatre Manager
Theatre Production Manager
El Camino Community College (Torrance, CA)
Summer Research Intern
Dedalus Foundation
Residency Director
Santa Fe Art Institute
Executive Director - Seven Days of Opening Nights Arts Festival
Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL)
To follow up on our initial post on SFIAF, we've decided to offer some additional information on the festival (along with a few highlights).
The 2007 San Francisco International Arts Festival is presented by Dance Mission Theater's Dance Brigade and San Francisco International Arts Festival, Inc. (SFIAF), and this year is subtitled "Truth in Knowing/Now: A Conversation Across the African Diaspora." SFIAF's mission is to promote the arts and San Francisco through production of an annual, multi-disciplinary festival that brings together the world community of artists and audiences. Because the Festival's purpose is to promote cultural and economic diversity and equity in their community, SFIAF places a high priority on the participation of culturally diverse and smaller arts organizations that represent the City's broad demographics. This arts festival is created not just by SFIAF, but the community as well.
With last year's festival highlighting the beauty of art in Latin American culture, this year's Arts Festival is attempting to expand SFIAF's mission even further, by knocking down the door of history, and seeking to reveal the truth, identity, and commonality among individuals and art in the African Diaspora. The Arts Festival will contain unprecedented installations, performances, and an overarching message, with creators, sponsors, funders and supporters of the event seeking to reveal and enhance the dialogue between individuals of African descent and the community at large.
Here are some highlights:
PERFORMANCE/DANCE
Joanna Haigood's Zaccho Dance Theatre performs an aerial World Premiere, Departure & Arrival, overhead at San Francisco International Airport's International Ticketing Hall. May 16, 18,19, & 20
The United States debut of Circus Baobab from Guinea. This French trained, globe trotting nouveau cirque company presents its acclaimed production "The Jumping Drums." May 23–26 at San Francisco's Project Artaud Theater.
Marc Bamuthi Joseph at Afro Solo. African American Arts & Culture Complex. Saturday, May 26 & 27
Eleanor Alberga of Earplay
Linda Tillery & The Cultural Heritage Choir
Deborah Vaughan of Dimensions Dance
Orchy Nzaba of Li-Sangha
VISUAL ART
Breaking Ice- Bay Area Artists Consider the African Diaspora.
May 16–27, 2007
Details from the Keiskamma Altarpiece at
March 27-- May 27
FILM
Documentaries and features from the U.S.A, Peru, Haiti, South Africa and Nigeria
MUSIC
The Underground Cabaret, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, May 17, 18, 19
