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Basquiat Painting Fetches Record $48.8 Million in NY

By goodblacknews on May 16, 2013
Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting titled "Dustheads" sold for $48.8 million at a May 15 auction. (Image courtesy of AP/NBC New York)
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting titled “Dustheads” sold for $48.8 million at a May 15 auction. (Image courtesy of AP/NBC New York)

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting titled “Dustheads” sold for $48.8 million yesterday at Christie’s at a sale of postwar and contemporary art in New York, setting a new auction record for Basquiat.  His “Untitled,” a painting of a black fisherman, held the previous record when it sold for $26.4 million last November.  Also breaking world auction prices for artists were works by Roy Lichtenstein and Jackson Pollock.

Lichtenstein’s “Woman with Flowered Hat” fetched $56 million. A classic example of pop art, the 1963 painting is based on Pablo Picasso’s portrait of his lover Dora Maar.  An important drip painting by Pollock, “Number 19,” realized a record $58.3 million.  Christie’s says Wednesday’s auction brought in $495 million, the highest total at any art auction.

article via nbcnewyork.com

Basquiat Videos: Toxic, Macklemore And Al Diaz Speak On SAMO's Inspiration And Legacy (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on May 12, 2013

Basquiat VideosWhether seen in a market report, an art history book or a rap verse, the name Jean-Michel Basquiat is legendary. The dreadlocked young artist quickly rose to fame after taking up graffiti in New York City, becoming an incandescent art star before his untimely death in 1988 at only 27 years old.

Twenty five years later, the late artist is experiencing a massive global resurgence. In New York, his blowout Gagosian retrospective saw record attendance and his work is slated to appear later this month at Gagosian’s posh Hong Kong gallery for the first time ever. And yet, we often get so tied up in Basquiat the legend we forget he was a real person.
A new three-part video series released by Christie’s remembers Basquiat not only for his artistic genius, but also his energy, audacity and growing pains. The series begins with Basquiat’s high school friend and the other half of the graffiti duo known as SAMO, Al Diaz. “What we were doing was a response to everything around us…everything we were disillusioned by.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCHe7HCBF1s&w=560&h=315]
Next we hear from Toxic, Basquiat’s friend and contemporary, who paints a picture of the Haitian artist’s meteoric rise to fame.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-NvULWRxdw&w=560&h=315]
Finally we hear from Ben Haggerty, aka Macklemore — yes, the singer of “Thrift Shop” — for a surprisingly touching meditation on Basquiat as a source of inspiration in his work as he grapples with his own success. “When he got with Warhol it was like everyone just tore him down.” Macklemore continues, “That’s such a weird feeling as an artist to make something that’s pure, that’s from the heart, that is who you are, and have a group of people shit on you.”
In a conversation with the curator and critic Henry Geldzahler in Interview, the 23-year-old artist delivers a deceptively simple, thought-provoking line: “The more I paint the more I like everything.” The films above honor the mind and legacy of a star that burned too bright, too fast.  Basquiat’s collection will show at Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong from May 25 until August 10, and “Dustheads” (1982) is expected to fetch $25-35 million at Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on May 15.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdJ82FqXn4g&w=560&h=315]
article by Priscilla Frank via huffingtonpost.com

Ophelia DeVore, Founder of 1st Black Modeling Agency, Donates Papers to Emory University

By goodblacknews on May 10, 2013
Ophelia DeVore
Ophelia DeVore was a model-turned-entrepreneur, launching a modeling agency, charm school and cosmetics line, and taking the helm of the Columbus Times in Columbus, Ga., after her husband’s death in 1972. She remains the paper’s owner today. (Photo credit: Ophelia DeVore papers, MARBL, Emory University.)
ATLANTA, Ga. — The founder of one of America’s first modeling agencies to represent women of color has placed her papers at Emory University.

Pioneering entrepreneur Ophelia DeVore Mitchell set up the New-York-based Grace Del Marco in 1946 at a time when it was almost unthinkable for black women to be recognized in the media for their beauty.
In its early days, the groundbreaking agency paved the way for African-Americans to pursue careers in the fashion and entertainment industries.
Agency launched black superstars
Indeed, the agency and modeling school helped launch the early careers of actresses Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson.
It also represented people such as Gail Fisher; Richard Roundtree; Trudy Haynes, one of the first black female TV reporters; and Helen Williams, one of the first African-American fashion models to break into the mainstream.
DeVore’s extensive collection consists of thousands of items, from photos to scrapbooks relating to her time at the helm of the agency, to lengthy correspondence from her other business ventures.
In an interview with theGrio, DeVore, who is surprisingly lucid for her 92 years, says when she co-founded Grace Del Marco, “people of color didn’t even count in the beauty industry, not just in America, but across the world.”
Her drive,  she says, came from her own personal experiences working briefly as a model, mainly for Ebony Magazine, from the age of 16.
Though DeVore is of mixed-race origin, the South-Carolina-born beauty became acutely aware of how black people were depicted in the media and subsequently made it her mission to change these images.
Two years later, in 1948, Devore established the Ophelia DeVore School of Charm, where young black women learned etiquette, poise and posture, speech and ballet, and self-presentation.
The archives, which span from the 1940s to 1990s, document the changing attitudes and images of non-whites in the beauty industry, says DeVore’s son, James D. Carter, who took over the charm school for a number of years and later ran other aspects of the Devore businesses.

Kerry Washington Graces the June Cover of Elle Magazine

By goodblacknews on May 7, 2013

kerry washington elle
Kerry Washington has landed the cover of Elle‘s June 2013 issue, making it the actress’ first major fashion mag cover. Washington poses in a sweet cardigan and plaid shorts by Marc Jacobs, with just a hint of a Carine Gilson Lingerie Couture bra peeking out.  It shouldn’t be too surprising that Kerry’s scored a major cover — not only is she a Best-Dressed List regular with enviable red carpet style, but she also stars in TV’s hottest show, Scandal, and was part of the massively successful Django Unchained.
Yet with all that success, Kerry had yet to pose for a fashion magazine cover up till now. Women’s Health, Ebony, Essence, Vibe — plenty of non-fashion glossies have chosen Kerry for their covers. She even shared the cover of Elle‘s “Women in Hollywood” issue in December 2012. But the likes of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar eluded her. Until now.
article via huffingtonpost.com

Brooklyn Academy of Music Stages All-Black ‘Julius Caesar’

By goodblacknews on April 23, 2013
The world-renowned Royal Shakespeare Company returns to BAM with a new twist on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Set in present-day Africa and featuring an all-black cast, this visionary production echoes recent regime struggles throughout the continent. TheAs you find your seat at BAM’s recent production and U.S. premiere of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Julius Caesar, a group of black actors cavort on stage, laughing and joking, casually passing the day in what appears to be a West African market place, immediately distinguishing this production of Julius Caesar from the Shakespeare you might remember from your 8th grade reading list.

Certainly less romantic, and probably for that reason less popular than say Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar has nonetheless surfaced in the past year in a modern day prison in the Triviani brothers’ film Caesar Must Die, in an all-female production staged at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, and now in an all-black production by Gregory Doran, using the political upheaval that has plagued modern day Africa as its backdrop.
Doran’s interpretation takes this classic drama’s transcendent themes – the corrupting influence of personal ambition, the fickle nature of public favor, and the unreliable symbols we pursue in making meaning of the world around us, just to name a few – out of the cool, limestone halls and monuments of ancient Rome, making them work and sweat under the hot, unflinching glare of the African sun.

The Whitney Museum of American Art Presents ‘Blues for Smoke,’ a Look at Blues, Jazz and American History

By goodblacknews on April 14, 2013

Charlie Parker

Beauford Delaney
Portrait of Charlie Parker, 1968, Oil on canvas
Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York

The Whitney Museum of American Art exhibit, “Blues for Smoke,” features an exciting array of works by a wide range of contemporary black artists. But it offers so much more. A journey back in time, the combination of works, inspired by African-American music, slips you, with a heady mix of anticipation and foreboding, into a dark, back alley jazz club that would be easily at home in the ruins of Potsdam, Berlin, or along the steamy backwater canals of New Orleans. The mood of the show captures the feeling of folks gathered at smatterings of café tables as you enter, where you sit and listen to live jazz vocals in an atmosphere tinged with the bite of a gin cocktail and the halo of cigarette smoke.

R.I.P. Maria Tallchief, America's 1st Native-American Prima Ballerina

By goodblacknews on April 12, 2013

Maria Tallchief
The New York Times reports today that Maria Tallchief, daughter of an Oklahoma oil family who grew up on an Indian reservation, found her way to New York and became one of the most brilliant American ballerinas of the 20th century, died on Thursday in Chicago.  She was 88.  Her daughter, the poet Elise Paschen, confirmed the death. Ms. Tallchief lived in Chicago.

Ms. Tallchief, a former wife and muse to the choreographer George Balanchine, achieved renown with Balanchine’s City Ballet, dazzling audiences with her speed, energy and fire. Indeed, the part that catapulted her to acclaim, in 1949, was the title role in the version of Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” one of many that Balanchine created for her.  In addition to “Firebird,” Balanchine created many striking roles for her, including those of the Swan Queen in his version of “Swan Lake,” the Sugar Plum Fairy in his version of “The Nutcracker,” Eurydice in “Orpheus” and principal roles in such plotless works as “Sylvia Pas de Deux,” “Allegro Brillante,” “Pas de Dix” and “Scotch Symphony.”

A daughter of an Osage Indian father and a Scottish-Irish mother, Ms. Tallchief left Oklahoma at an early age, but she was long associated with the region nevertheless. She was one of five dancers of Indian heritage, all born in Oklahoma at roughly the same time, who came to be called the Oklahoma Indian ballerinas; the others included her sister, Marjorie Tallchief, as well as Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin and Yvonne Chouteau.  Growing up at a time when many American dancers adopted Russian stage names, Ms. Tallchief, proud of her Indian heritage, refused to do so, even though friends told her that it would be easy to transform Tallchief into Tallchieva.

 In 2007, PBS aired the documentary, “Maria Tallchief” about this Kennedy Center Honor recipient’s life and work.   To read more about Tallchief, click here.  To watch Tallchief narrate her stunning “Firebird” solo, click below:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y_tWR07F7Y&w=420&h=315]

article by Jack Anderson via nytimes.com; additional reporting by Lori Lakin Hutcherson

Former Lover Reveals Wealth of Unseen Works by Basquiat

By goodblacknews on April 9, 2013
Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)'
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s ‘Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)’ painting estimated at 7-9 million GBP is displayed at Christie’s in February in London, England. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? More to the point, is a sound only a sound if someone hears it? Without delving too deeply into the metaphysics, this riddle offers an imperfect analogy for the philosophical conundrum more relevant here, namely – is art only art if someone sees it?  TheGrio interviewed Alexis Adler, a New York University embryologist and former romantic companion of iconic Haitian-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, these and other tacit questions about how we evaluate, share and make meaning of art played mysteriously in the background.

Adler, who lived with Basquiat before he was famous, recently revealed plans to share a previously unseen, thirty-year-old collection of art works and ephemera from the early career of the tragic and prolific creator. Produced during their relationship in an East Village apartment — some pieces on the apartment — these pieces have never been seen by the art world or the public.
“This is allowing the people who knew Jean to tell the world more about him, who he was, how I knew him, his warmth and interest as a person,” Adler told theGrio about her plans. “There is a range of work from that time, and it offers a pretty intense snapshot of his beginnings as an artist.”

Halle Berry, Michael Kors Launch 'Watch Hunger Stop' Campaign

By goodblacknews on April 8, 2013

 

Halle Berry Michael Kors
NEW YORK — Halle Berry says she’s a woman of compassion and Michael Kors says he’s a man of action. Together, they want to make a dent in the battle against hunger around the world.  The actress and fashion designer announced a philanthropic campaign Monday called Watch Hunger Stop that includes raising money through the sale of a version of Kors’ best-selling Runway watch. For each $295 watch sold, 100 meals will be provided to children through the U.N. World Food Programme.
Berry and Kors are planning to visit places together where the meals will be sent. They could land in Africa, in Syria, perhaps Central America.  The 46-year-old Berry, who is expecting her first child with fiance Olivier Martinez, said in an exclusive joint interview Saturday with Kors: “I hope we go while I’m pregnant, so I can talk about prenatal care.”

Dance Theater of Harlem Reopens after Nine Years

By goodblacknews on April 7, 2013
Virginia Johnson, the artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem, with her dancers, at an open rehearsal. (Andrea Mohin/The New York Times)

In the early days of Dance Theater of Harlem its members, charged with proving to the world that black dancers could master ballet, needed a certain pluck. “It was a group of young dancers that went out and carried their own lights and did lecture-demonstrations and started performing,” said Laveen Naidu, 45, the organization’s executive director.

Dance Theater of Harlem performers rehearsing Robert Garland’s new “Gloria.”

That scrappy image has served Virginia Johnson well. The elegant artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem — and its star ballerina for 28 years — Ms. Johnson, 63, was reminded of such humble beginnings last spring, when she held auditions for the rebirth of the company. (It had been forced to go on hiatus in 2004 when it announced its $2.3 million debt.) As Ms. Johnson put it, she had stars in her eyes. But she was in for a surprise.

“I was really shocked at how few African-Americans auditioned,” she said. “And that was the moment when we were looking in this room, and it was like, ‘No, but where are the black people?’ ”

She laughed, as she often does when describing a seemingly hopeless situation. “I thought about Arthur Mitchell with all the hodgepodge of dancers that came to him back in 1969 that he had to make into a company. I said, ‘O.K., it’s the same thing again, and this is great.’ It was actually more exciting than taking top-level dancers and making them into a company. It meant that we had to have that inner-grit thing going again.”

Dance Theater, formed by Mr. Mitchell and Karel Shook, took on the barrier-breaking mission of training and presenting black classical ballet dancers to the world. For years the company was more than a thriving, internationally touring troupe. It showed that ballet was no longer just a white domain. But then the company disappeared, leaving a gaping hole.  One year off turned into nine; disillusionment set in. Now Dance Theater is making a comeback. Beginning Wednesday the company, lean at just 18 members from 44 in 2004, will perform at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center.