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Posts published in “Arts / Style”

Top 10 Afro-Smart Buildings and Interior Designs

By goodblacknews on April 4, 2013
North Island Lodge in the Seychelles

From the Great Pyramids of Giza to the rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia; the Swahili stone houses of Kenya to the Bedouin tents of Morocco — indigenous African design bespeaks grace, style, imagination and verve. Over hundreds of years, the continent has also absorbed layers of influence from other cultures through explorers, invaders, soldiers, stonemasons, merchants and missionaries hailing from such far-flung places as Turkey, India, Europe, China and Arabia. Today’s architecture and interior design draws on this variegated past, often fusing local, hand-crafted elements with modern technology to create an aesthetic that is absolutely African.

One example is pictured – North Island Lodge (www.north-island.org).  The Lodge opened 10 years ago on a private paradise island in the Seychelles and caters to the ecologically-minded. The entire place was built after extensive coordination with the government to make certain the environment was not only undisturbed, but preserved. The owners’ philosophy is to rehabilitate habitats and reintroduce the critically endangered flora and fauna of Seychelles.

To see and learn more about this and other indigenous African constructs, click on Africa.com‘s full article and slideshow  Top 10 Afro-Smart Designs.

original article by Africa.com‘s Peggy Healy

Artist Kehinde Wiley Gains Attention for Exhibit at Phoenix Art Museum

By goodblacknews on April 3, 2013
New York-based painter Kehinde Wiley‘s current exhibit Kehinde Wiley: Memling at the Phoenix Art Museum is attracting national attention, most recently via a mention in Time Magazine’s ‘Pop Chart’ in the March 18 issue. Wiley’s eight portraits take their poses and contexts from the works by the legendary 15th century Flemish master Hans Memling but Wiley has substituted contemporary sitters for the historical figures. 

Beautiful Games: Oil Paintings by Ghanaian Artist Tafa

By goodblacknews on March 30, 2013

Painting by Tafa
Ghanaian artist Tafa has imbued his vibrant oil paintings with motion by stroking thick layers of paint across each canvas with a palette knife. Inspired by his West African heritage – especially the colors and patterns of Kente cloths and the rhythm of traditional drums – Tafa rose to prominence as an artist in his own country in the 1990s before moving to New York. His imagery encompasses sporting themes, as well as spirituality and music.
“I paint sports themes because they are a universal form of communication that is replete with powerful, multi-layered symbolism. Team sport fosters hard work, fraternity, excellence, and international understanding … It is an area of life that underlines Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision that people should be judged by the content of their character.”  To see more of his inspiring works, click here.
article via guardian.co.uk

GBN Historical Photo of the Day

By goodblacknews on March 30, 2013


Muhammad Ali vs. Floyd Patterson 1965

50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair on Display at Chicago History Museum through Jan. 2014

By goodblacknews on March 30, 2013

inspiring beauty

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Ebony Fashion Fair exposed black American audiences to some of the most cutting edge couture fashions in the world.  But the reason the shows were able to attract such quality was because of Eunice W. Johnson, the wife of John Johnson, who was the head of Johnson Publishing Company.  Mrs. Johnson regularly traveled to Europe and purchased couture from the top fashion houses in Europe.
“On the runways, what you saw was her vision of what was fashionable and what was stylish,” curator Joy Bivins said. “In the late 1950s, when these black people showed up in Europe to purchase these garments, it wasn’t always an easy thing to get their foot in the door. They didn’t have the history, they didn’t know who we were, what Ebony was.”
They amassed thousands of ensembles, some of which will be on display at the Chicago History Museum’s newest exhibition “Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair.”
Read the full article: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair on display at Chicago History Museum through Jan. 2014 | theGrio.

South African Photographer Wins Anti-Censorship Award for Portraits of Black Lesbians

By goodblacknews on March 30, 2013
Portrait of a South African lesbian couple: Apinda and Ayanda, by Zanele Muholi. Photograph: Zanele Muholi/Courtesy of Stevenson
South African photographer Zanele Muholi has spent the last 10 years determinedly creating a visual archive of black lesbian life in South Africa, often in the face of considerable opposition.
Her work was recognized with a major international freedom of expression prize at the Index on Censorship Awards, which, according to chairman Jonathan Dimbleby, celebrate the fundamental right to “Write, blog, tweet, speak out, protest and create art and literature and music.”
Other winners announced at the annual prizegiving evening in London included Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai and Greek editor Kostas Vaxevanis.
Muholi said that South Africa was country of huge contrasts for gay people: on the one hand it has been enormously progressive and in 1996 became the first country in the world to constitutionally prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation; on the other, there is a culture of fear if you are gay and serious hate crime is a huge problem, including “corrective” rape to “straighten out” lesbians. In the last year, four women have been murdered because of their sexuality, including Phumeza Nkolonzi, 22, who was shot dead in front of her grandmother and niece, and Sihle Sikoji, aged 19 when she was stabbed to death.

GBN Historical Photo of the Day

By goodblacknews on March 29, 2013


Leontyne Price as “Cleopatra” in the 1966 production of “Antony and Cleopatra” by the Metropolitan Opera at the Lincoln Center in New York.

Stephen Burrows, 1st Internationally Successful Black Fashion Designer, Earns Retrospective in NY

By goodblacknews on March 28, 2013

Stephen Burrows’s collection for Henri Bendel in Central Park in 1970. (Charles Tracy)

Every decade or so, Mr. Burrows has a moment, whenever his disco-era look of rainbow jersey dresses and lettuce-edge hems has an unexpected revival in fashion. This season, there was more than a hint of his influence on the runways of Diane von Furstenberg (color blocking meets glam-rock wrap dress) and Marc by Marc Jacobs (berry colors and groovy prints that suggest the ’40s by way of the ’70s).

Stephen Burrows
Stephen Burrows

People are also talking about Mr. Burrows because he played a pivotal role as one of the American designers who participated in the 1973 fashion spectacular at Versailles, an event recently revisited in a documentary by Deborah Riley Draper and the subject of a book planned by Robin Givhan. That show broke color barriers in fashion in a way that has not been replicated since.
As of March 22nd, in recognition of Mr. Burrows, who is 69, as the first internationally successful African-American designer, the Museum of the City of New York began the first large-scale exhibition of his early work. More than 50 of his designs, including a chromatically colored jersey jumpsuit that Carrie Donovan plucked from his boutique inside Henri Bendel in 1970 for Cher to wear in a Vogue photo shoot, are on display, along with videos, photos and one of his Coty Awards. Mr. Burrows was the first African-American designer to receive one.

HBCU Elizabeth City State University Opens a New Art Gallery

By goodblacknews on March 23, 2013

guitaplayerjones
“Guitar Player” by Leonard Jones

Elizabeth City State University, the historically Black educational institution in North Carolina, recently opened its new Kermit E. White Graduate and Continuing Education Center. The center houses the university’s art gallery.
One section of the gallery will display pieces from the university’s permanent collection of African and African American art. The other part of the gallery will exhibit a rotating selection or a visiting collection.
Professor Alexis Joyner, chair of the art department at the university, loaned eight pieces from his personal collection for the opening exhibit. In addition, works by Leonard Jones, a former professor at Virginia State University and Charles Joyner of North Carolina State University are in the opening exhibit.
The accompanying illustration shows one of the pieces in the exhibit, “Guitar Player” by Leonard Jones.
article via jbhe.com

Patrick Robinson Named Creative Director of Armani Exchange

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013

Patrick Robinson
According to Fashionista.com, Patrick Robinson, former Gap Creative Director who recently launched sportswear line Paskho via Kickstarter, will join Armani Exchange as its Creative Director.  
His responsibilities will “range from product development to providing creative direction in marketing areas.”
Robinson formerly held the position of Design Director at Giorgio Armani in the 1990s, and in his four years there he made the company’s “Collezioni” line profitable.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, with contributions from Lesa Lakin via Breaking: Patrick Robinson Is Now the Creative Director of Armani Exchange | Fashionista.