Summer

I've been frolicking around this summer...

colourblocked. pt 2

colourblocking.

bff came to dc. we chopped it up @ the hirshorn contemporary art museum. :)

top: forever21
romper: urbanoutfitters
flipflops: rainbow
bag: rebecca minkoff
sunnies: urban

reading list | afro modern

tracing the visual narrative of paul gilroy's black atlantic in artistic production post-1900. im on it! :)

mequitta ahuja

Protege of Kerry James Marshall, artist Mequitta Ahuja is making a name for herself. Already having solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Saatchi Gallery is ensuring that Ahuja is getting the much needed recognition that she deserves. This posts is for those of you that support the natural hair movement! You can check out more of her work at her upcoming exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem on July 15th.

 Afrogalaxy.

Dream Region

swissart.

Nearly 63,000 people sojourned to Switzerland for the Art 41 Basel lnternational Exhibition last week, which featured art from over 2,000 artists and representation from over 300 galleries across the world.

Labirinto e Grande Pozzo (1969/2010) by Michelangelo Pistoletto, represented by Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy

serendipity

On perhaps, one of the most serendipitous weekends of my life, a dear friend and I encountered this monumental mural wheatpasted by one of the most important political artists of our time. Shepard Fairey. As it turns out, May Day was commissioned by Dietch Projects (a prominent New York gallery that represents some of the most influential contemporary artists in the world, like Kehinde Wiley).

Below is an excerpt from the press release:

Shepard Fairey’s mural addresses contemporary political themes, but also pays tribute to some of the Pop artists who have influenced him. The American flag and the target reference the iconic paintings of Jasper Johns who is also the subject of a portrait in the May Day exhibition. The newspaper and the May Day megaphone advertisement pay tribute to Warhol's early painted renditions of common subject matter. The mural also weaves in many smaller images and decorative patterns which supplement the aesthetic and themes of the larger images.

mustafa maluka

Mustafa Maluka is on my radar for obvious reasons. Interesting subjects. Bright colors. Depth of field. Say no more. His work is captivating and alluring. So seductive.

Image: Maluka, Mustafa. "They tell me I'm doing fine". 2007.

public works.

Albus Cavus

A collective of artists in New Jersey and DC. Some of the most mind-boggling, phantasmagoric public art that I have ever experienced. You can check them out at www.albuscavus.com or on their Flickr account.

I'm currently working on having them present a workshop for my students. Updates soon!

Homage to Frank Lloyd Wright @ the Guggenheim Museum

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/now-dining-the-guggenheims-wright-restaurant/

Presentation is everything.

things that make u go "hmm..."

So I've been thinking a lot about the body, femininity, and black female sexuality...and the wheels in my head are constantly turning. Apparently, the black female body is on a lot of people's (and company's) minds, including Old Navy, and painter/photographer extraordinaire Mickalene Thomas.

While sitting at the dinner table, my partner and I were watching Family Guy's satire of Fox News (how ironic?), when the scene ended and a spanking new 30-second commercial from Old Navy appeared on the screen. In this particular episode entitled "Mid-Town Flash with the Supermodelquins", a dialogue between three multicultural female and anthropomorphized mannequins and their male counterparts goes a little something like this:

Black Male Mannequin: "Look Buddy! Doesn't mom look pretty in her new midtown gown!?"
Son Mannequin: "You go, Mom!"

White Female Mannequin: "These Midtown gowns are so cute!"
Latina Mannequin: "Especially if I had your legs!" [Looks over at a random pair of white female legs in a box in a corner]

White Female Mannequin: "There's an extra pair in the back room..."
Latina Mannequin: "At $15 these dresses are gonna fly!"

[Live white little girl snatches the dress off of the black Mannequin, named Michelle] [WTF!!!??]

White Female Mannequin: [expresses shock]
Dog barks.
White Male Mannequin: "Sweet!"

Black Father to White Male Mannequin: "Hey man, keep your painted on eyes off my wife!" [puts hand up to White Male Mannequin's face]

White Male Mannequin: "I can't! Your fingers don't close."
Michelle: [with prototypical black girl attitude] "Oh what! Like you've never seen plastic before!"

END SCENE.

As I sit here at the breakfast bar in my partner's kitchen, I'm at a complete loss for words. Okay...not really but seriously... I don't know what to say first. So below I've posted a picture of some of the comments that the commercial has garnered.

Has Michelle Obama's ubiquitous celebrity and visibility made advertisers and the industry, mostly dominated by white men, mad? What does it mean for an image or representation of a black woman, vis-a-vis a mannequin, to be normalized, or even, humorized, as a naked derivative of sexual pleasure and voyeurism with "attitude" a la mode?

The Youtube comments from the video speak volumes to the ways in which tidbits of popular culture and consumerism become conduits for propagating racialized and misogynistic fantasy within the American public imagination and consciousness. Yes, this commercial bares undertones of racializing stereotypes. Yes, it was probably intended to be lighthearted, contemporary, and humorous. And Yes, by participating in the dialogue that the Supermodelquins have started, I am reproducing the effects that this commercial garners.

However, as a black woman, I also understand that even though publicly, access to my own body and my own sexuality may be usurped from me and plastered all over TV and magazines and the internet, through every medium from Old Navy commercials to Smooth Magazine to Manet's Olympia, I determine when and where I enter. Which is why I admire such projects like those of artist Mickalene Thomas.

Her large scale photographs, prints, and paintings picturing black female subjects are the perfect segue way to engage in a dialogue about reclaiming and complicating so-called representations of black women, their bodies, and sexuality. Her first solo-exhibition, entitled Mickalene Thomas: She's Come UnDone! will debut at Lehmann Maupin gallery in New York City this Thursday, and will run until May 2, 2009.

Thomas's work is far from the panecea for distasteful and demode depictions of black women. In fact, it beckons us as viewers to ponder notions of celebrity, control, lust, exploitation, and emulation. Pieces like "Put something on it" remind us that there is no "right" or "wrong" representation of black women, but it is the way in which black female bodies are framed, in nuance, that reify the notion that well, presentation is everything.

Image: Mickalene Thomas, Put something down on it, mounted c-print, 30 x 24 inches, 76.2 x 61 cm, 2009. Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin gallery.

intruder alert

Okay, I can deal with Paris Fashion Week. I can even deal with the Metropolitan Opera's 125th Anniversary Gala. But if Kanye West and Amber Rose continue to infiltrate my most sacred place of refuge, le monde du l'art, I am going to give up my aspirations of becoming an art historian and apply for a job at American Apparel selling spandex disco pants. Image courtesy of Scene and Heard, ArtForum.com.

Top: Jeffrey Deitch, renowned international art dealer, and Amber Rose, former exotic dancer and video vixen. Bottom: Kanye West and artist Vanessa Beescroft.

abstract landscapes

Before I first encountered the work of painter Richard Mayhew, I never quite understood the notion that large-scale color field paintings operate as a form of landscape. Clearly, Mayhew incorporates the rhapsody and the elusiveness of abstraction while utilizing layered colors and light to recreate horizon lines and natural forms. You can check out more of Mayhew's work at G.R. N'Namdi Gallery in Chicago.
Image: Richard Mayhew, Untitled, oil on canvas.

hip-hop/dont stop

This Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation and poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph are giving a highly anticipated talk on the "power of hip-hop to reshape the American and global cultural landscape at this historic moment in US politics."

As a budding cultural critic and art-historian who is excited to see cultural producers and scholars break down the barriers and reveal the intersectionality between both worlds, I will undoubtedly be in attendance.

You can check out the discussion and performance at mcachicago.org

Image: Kori Newkirk, Hip-hop from Home (Fake that Floss) 2001.