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Posts published in “Arts / Style”

Black Arts Movement Works Acquired by Brooklyn Museum

By goodblacknews on January 18, 2013
UrbanWallSuitJae Jarrell’s “Urban Wall Suit,” from 1969, recently bought by the Brooklyn Museum.

As the curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum began work on an exhibition to coincide with next year’s anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, she happened on a trove of works from the Black Arts Movement, the cultural arm of the black power movement of the 1960s and ’70s, the New York Times reported.

Noticing that the collection bridged two generations of works already among the museum’s holdings — by earlier African-American artists like John Biggers, Sargent Johnson and Lois Mailou Jones, and by their contemporary successors — the curator, Teresa A. Carbone, persuaded the museum to acquire it.

“Even at a time when people are more aware of the established canon of black artists,” Ms. Carbone said, “these artists are only now gaining the recognition they deserve.”

The collection — 44 works by 26 artists — was assembled by David Lusenhop, a former Chicago dealer now living in Detroit, and his colleague Melissa Azzi. About a dozen years ago the two began buying pieces they felt were prime examples of the Black Arts Movement.

President Barack Obama's Profound Visual Argument for Gun Control

By goodblacknews on January 18, 2013

Barack Obama, gun control

President Barack Obama, accompanied by children who wrote to the president about gun violence following last month’s school shooting in the US, signs executive orders. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
Barack Obama signs a series of executive actions in favour of gun control, flanked by children who wrote to him after the killings at Sandy Hook. Their parents or guardians stand behind them. While the children reflect the president’s solemnity, the supervising adults are finding it hard not to grin with pride at their kids’ involvement in this historic occasion.
It might look cynical. It might seem a bit obvious. The imagery here is so crystal clear they might as well have had a big sign saying “Children! Future!” (as they sing at The Simpsons’ Springfield elementary school).
But if you think that you probably haven’t got a child. Or perhaps you rationalised the US’s horror at the shootings that led to this photograph as colossal hypocrisy in the face of alleged massacres of non-American children by military drones. For some on the left it seems Obama is little better than a child murderer himself, while for the gun-toting right, his desire to restrict gun access is an assault on freedoms defined in the 18th-century political discourse that is the Constitution of the United States:

“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

And this is the point of Obama’s photo opportunity with America’s children. The debate about gun control is a debate about history and its burdens. When that amendment was added to the constitution in 1791, the authors surely did not think they were setting down the Ten Commandments of national identity, to be preserved unaltered forever. Or if they did, well … they are dead.

Historic African-American Buildings Added to Virginia Landmarks Register

By goodblacknews on January 13, 2013

 

First Baptist Church in Farmville, VA
First Baptist Church in Farmville, VA

RICHMOND – The story of education for African Americans and women in Virginia factors into five of the sixteen sites the Department of Historic Resources recently listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register, the state’s official list of historically important places. The sites include a Farmville church, two Tidewater schools, a house in Falls Church, and a building at the University of Richmond.
The First Baptist Church in Farmville, founded 1867, emerged as a center for the local black community under the leadership of its pastor, the Reverend L. Francis Griffin, when it sought to desegregate Prince Edward County’s public schools during the 1950s and 1960s. Within weeks of an April 1951 student strike at the all-black Robert Russa Moton High School, Griffin successfully led efforts at the church to get youth, parents, and community leaders to support an important lawsuit of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

Go-Go Music Godfather Chuck Brown To Be Honored with City Park Memorial and Ampitheater

By goodblacknews on January 12, 2013

(D.C. Department of General Services)

(D.C. Department of General Services)

Washington DC city officials released renderings of the city’s recreational tribute to go-go godfather Chuck Brown — a $1 million steel-and-wood music pavilion on the grounds of Langdon Park in Northeast Washington.  The bandshell faces outdoor seating built into an earthen berm and surrounded by magnolia trees and backed by a copse of evergreens. Beside it stands a “timeline tower” listing Brown’s most famous songs in chronological order.
The architects, Marshall Moya Design, said the pavilion “follow[s] the ancient design concepts that the Romans used to build open-air amphitheaters.” In any case, it’s a lot more impressive than the initial plans for Chuck Brown Park.
It will be an all-too-rare locally oriented memorial, Mayor Vincent C. Gray said Thursday. ”A lot of our monuments, which are iconic, are really a tribute to people who have national significance,” he said. “We have so many of those, and we just want to make sure we recognize that we have over 600,000 people in the city, many of whom made an important contribution to the city. … Chuck was one of those.”

University of Arizona Introduces First Ever Hip-Hop Minor

By goodblacknews on January 7, 2013
grandmaster-flash-16x9

The University of Arizona has announced that it has created a “Hip-Hop Concentration” minor under the Africana Studies department, the first of its kind for any institution, according to the school’s website.
The course’s objectives are to “provide students with a solid introduction and broad understanding of the origins and developing of the forms of expression that make up hip-hop culture throughout the world: hip-hop dance, rap music, graffiti/tagging, fashion, business, and film.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Film Critic Wesley Morris Joins Sports/Pop Culture Website Grantland

By goodblacknews on January 6, 2013

Wesley Morris in 2012 (YouTube)
Wesley Morris, the African-American film critic for the Boston Globe who won a Pulitzer Prize last year, is leaving for Grantland, the ESPN-affiliated sports/pop culture website that specializes in longform journalism, his Globe editor told staffers Thursday night.
“I just didn’t have a reason to say no any longer,” Morris told Journal-isms by telephone on Friday. Morris had already been writing for Grantland, and this presented an opportunity to write about film for the site full-time, he said. Moreover, “I can do my job from anywhere. That’s very appealing.”

New Series Of Print Posters, ‘Crowns of Color,’ Created to Celebrate Natural Hair

By goodblacknews on December 22, 2012
A black woman with natural hair

A black woman with natural hair. © Lvnel – Fotolia.com

From Clutch Magazine:

To say the least, black hair seems to have remained one of the most debated topics this year amongst women of color. It has remained a topic of cultural anguish, with tales of tampered coils and unruly strands ruling online forums and video blogs. The essence of black hair has rarely been adored simply for its beauty and uniqueness. One Black woman, however, is seeking to bend the conversation by doing just that through her artwork.

Andrea Pippins, a Baltimore-based graphic designer,released a four-poster series of prints titled “Crowns of Color” last week as answer for her need of diverse affordable art a light-hearted celebration of black women’s hair. In an interview with Colorlines Magazine, Pippins describes how she hopes to steer the black hair conversation in a different direction:

“With all due respect, I am personally tired of the natural hair conversation in regards to one having to defend the choice to go natural, encouraging someone to go natural, or speaking to it from a place of political debate.”

Read the rest of this story on Clutch Magazine.

‘African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde’ at the Met

By goodblacknews on December 21, 2012

Masks in Malvin Gray Johnson’s painting “Negro Masks” (1932). (Librado Romero/The New York Times)

It’s easy to take for granted just how quickly art travels today, whether by JPEG or shipping crate. For a sense of how slow things were just a century ago, and how much could get lost en route from one continent to another, visit “African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde,” a small but highly compelling show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s one of several exhibitions timed to the centennial of the Armory Show of 1913, where many New Yorkers caught their first glimpse of Modern art from Europe (much of it influenced by African sculpture).

Meticulously researched and thoughtfully presented by Yaëlle Biro, the Met’s assistant curator in the department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, it tells the story of African art’s early reception in the United States with exceptional candor. And it makes clear that Americans received Modern art and African art as a single import, derived from French and Belgian colonies, distilled in Paris and presented on these shores by a few tastemaking dealers and collectors.

Richest Black Woman In The World is Oil Mogul Folorunsho Alakija

By goodblacknews on December 6, 2012

folorunsho alakijaFolorunsho Alakija on the November 2012 cover of Geneieve magazine in a dress by Iconic Invanity.

Oprah Winfrey is no longer the richest black woman in the world.  The new leading lady is oil baroness Folorunsho Alakija from Nigeria. While drilling oil has reportedly made the 61-year-old owner of FAMFA Oil Limited a very rich woman — she is estimated to be worth at least $3.2 billion — Alakija started her ascent to financial supremacy in fashion.

Born into a wealthy family, Alakija studied fashion design in England back in the ’80s and soon after founded the Nigerian clothing label Supreme Stitches. Her one-of-a-kind creations were worn by the who’s who of African society, quickly making her the premier fashion designer in the West African country. In fact, she has been called one of the “pioneers of Nigerian fashion” and stays connected to the industry through the Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria (FDAN).  The well-heeled businesswoman and philanthropist made the switch to oil in 1993 and the rest is history. Ventures Africa reports that Alakija owns at least $100 million in real estate and a $46 million private jet.

article by Julee Wilson via huffingtonpost.com

Exhibit to Explore History of African-Americans in Medicine During Civil War

By goodblacknews on December 6, 2012
(File Photo)Some may not know how much of a part African-Americans played in the Civil War, but the National Library of Medicine has produced a free, traveling exhibit to shed light on their work in the health field during that time.  “Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries” explores black Americans’ contributions as nurses, surgeons and hospital staff during the war.

According to the National Library of Medicine, for African-Americans, the Civil War was “a fight for freedom and a chance for full participation in American society.”  “Their participation challenged the prescribed notions of both race and gender and pushed the boundaries of the role of blacks in America,” the site reads.