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Posts published in “Exhibitions”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum to Host FREE Admission Day with Special Events in Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By goodblacknews on January 18, 2015

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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, OH is hosting its 14th annual FREE admission day in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 19, 2015 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Museum will offer a day filled with live performances, education programs and family activities that will highlight how people use music to find their voice and create a sense of community.
Visitors are invited to experience the Rock Hall’s many exhibits that showcase how Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees and other artists have used popular music to communicate ideas to a wide audience and bring about social change.  The day of events is sponsored by KeyBank.
In addition to free admission, visitors will be able to enter for a chance to win a Museum membership, as five Family Roller memberships will be raffled off during the day.  For a list of current exhibits and for more information about this and other Rock Hall events, visit http://www.rockhall.com.
Klipsch Audio stage entertainment lineup:
Jason Walker of Sounds of Entertainment will emcee the events.
The Antioch Spiritual Arts Choir, an acclaimed co-ed choir from Antioch Baptist Church who focus on spirituals, folk and gospel music.
West Side Community House’s Summer of Sisterhood program began in 2010 under the leadership of Ali McClain, youth services director.  The program teaches girls ages 10-18 how the power of creative expression can positively change their community and even the world.  The girls work intensively for eight week with professional teaching artists to create original songs, music videos, and live performances of their work.
The Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word, a powerful performance arts and spoken word group comprised of adolescent males (age 12-19) from various inner city Cleveland communities.
Inspire *1* One, a band comprised of former students from Cleveland School of the Arts.
Lake Erie Ink, a writing space for youth is a non-profit that provides creative expression opportunities and academic support to youth in the greater Cleveland community.  LEI works with youth from different socio-economic, cultural and academic backgrounds, using creative writing to increase literacy and social engagement. The organization offers creative expression workshops onsite and off, to youth of all ages, including an after school program, weekly evening workshops for teens, and monthly weekend workshops and open mics.
Foster Theater Programming:
Programming will be taught by the Rock Hall’s award-winning education staff.  Seating is limited. Attendance will be on a first-come first-served basis.
Special Presentation:  “Rock and Roll and the Civil Rights Movement”
This program will explore how a range of artists, from Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke to Berry Gordy at Motown and rock and roll pioneer Fats Domino created a popular music that empowered African Americans to take their rightful place in American society. Young people of all races flocked to their performances and embraced their music, which helped to break down the walls and barriers that the Civil Rights movement was fighting against.
Album Spotlight: Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On
This special presentation will focus on the making and impact of Marvin Gaye’s landmark 1971 album, which still resonates for listeners today. The full album will be played, with no interruption, with discussion to follow.

Philadelphia Museum of Art to Open “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art” Exhibit in January 2015

By goodblacknews on December 16, 2014

The Annunciation, (1898), Henry Ossawa Tanner. (Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1899)
The Annunciation, (1898), Henry Ossawa Tanner. (Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1899)

In January, the Philadelphia Museum will open “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art,” a sprawling survey of its holdings of works by black artists. Featuring 75 artworks by over 50 artists, the show’s earliest pieces include silhouettes by Moses Williams that date to 1802, pre-Civil War decorative arts by free and enslaved artists, and potter David Drake’s bible-inscribed storage jar sculpture.
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Birds in Flight (1927) by Aaron Douglas (Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art, © Heirs of Aaron Douglas/Licensed by VAGA, New York)

“Presenting these works together now, we are mindful of the many anniversaries of the civil rights movement that have recently passed or are soon to come, and are thinking equally about the way race remains a key topic of conversation in the United States today—in politics, society, popular culture, and, of course, the arts,” said Philadelphia Museum of Art director Timothy Rub said in a statement. “This is an important moment in which to explore the historic development and continuing growth of the Museum’s collections of African American art.”
A centerpiece of the exhibition is undoubtedly Henry Ossawa Tanner’s 1898 painting titled The Annunciation, reports the Wall Street Journal. Acquired by the museum in 1899, it was the first piece by an African American artist added to its collection. The show traces black artists through many of the major movements in American art history, from Cubism with Aaron Douglas’s Birds in Flight (1927) to Modernism with works by William Henry Johnson and Elizabeth Catlett. A combination of both can be seen in the figurative painting of Harlem Renaissance artist Jacob Lawrence.
Other, more contemporary, highlights include Barbara Chase-Riboud’s large-scale bronze and fiber sculpture Malcolm X #3, as well as pieces by Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker.
“Represent: 200 Years of African American Art” will be on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art January 10, 2015 though April 5, 2015. (Preview a selection of artworks from the exhibition below.)

Art Project "Funk, God, Jazz & Medicine" Celebrates Black Heritage in Brooklyn This Weekend

By goodblacknews on October 8, 2014
“Funk, God, Jazz & Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn” (Credit: Todd Heisler/The New York Times)

New York City so knows how to lose — and save, and lose again — its history. Among notable rescues of the past several decades were material remains of the vanished 19th-century African-American village of Weeksville in Brooklyn, snatched from the jaws of 1960s urban renewal. Once in parts of what are now Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, the village is currently getting fresh and needed attention in an art project organized by the Weeksville Heritage Center and Creative Time called “Funk, God, Jazz & Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn,” which runs Friday through Sunday (October 10-12).

Spread over four sites, the project roughly maps the footprint of the original settlement. More important, it strengthens the memory of a local past that could easily be swallowed up by gentrification.

The village was named for James Weeks, an ex-slave from Virginia who came to New York in 1838. His intention was to create a community of landowning African-Americans at a time when such ownership was a requirement for voting. The plan took hold. By the time of the Civil War, the village had more than 500 residents, two churches, a school, an orphanage, an old-age home, a cemetery and its own newspaper, The Freedman’s Torchlight. Blacks fleeing the draft riots in Manhattan in 1863 sought refuge there and stayed. But after the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, with a swelling in the general population, Weeksville was gradually absorbed into newer communities that surrounded it.

In 1968, four of the village’s 19th-century wood-frame houses were rediscovered, in derelict shape, on an oddly angled street that had once been a section of Hunterfly Road in Weeksville, and before that, an American Indian trail. The area was scheduled for demolition, but after community pressure, the houses were declared city landmarks. Restored, they are now part of the Heritage Center, which encompasses vegetable and flower gardens and, as of 2013, an education building with an auditorium and classrooms.

Earliest Surviving Footage for a Feature Film with a Black Cast to Be Exhibited by Museum of Modern Art

By goodblacknews on September 23, 2014
Footage from what may be the earliest surviving feature film with a black cast, made in 1913. (Credit: Bert Williams, “Lime Kiln Field Day Project”, via Museum of Modern Art)

For decades, the seven reels from 1913 lay unexamined in the film archives of the Museum of Modern Art. Now, after years of research, a historic find has emerged: what MoMA curators say is the earliest surviving footage for a feature film with a black cast. It is a rare visual depiction of middle-class black characters from an era when lynchings and stereotyped black images were commonplace. What’s more, the material features Bert Williams, the first black superstar on Broadway. Williams appears in blackface in the untitled silent film along with a roster of actors from the sparsely documented community of black performers in Harlem on the cusp of the Harlem Renaissance. Remarkably, the reels also capture behind-the-scenes interactions between these performers and the directors.

MoMA plans an exhibition around the work called “100 Years in Post-Production: Resurrecting a Lost Landmark of Black Film History,” which is to open on Oct. 24 and showcase excerpts and still frames. Sixty minutes of restored footage will be shown on Nov. 8 in the museum’s annual To Save and Project festival dedicated to film preservation.

“There are so many things about it that are amazing,” said Jacqueline Stewart, a film scholar at the University of Chicago. “It’s the first time I’ve seen footage from an unreleased film that really gives us insights into the production process.”

She added: “It’s an interracial production, but not in the way scholars have talked about early film history, in which black filmmakers had to rely on the expertise and money of white filmmakers. Here, we see a negotiation between performers and filmmakers.” Of the three directors of the film, one was black and two were white.

"For Colored Girls" 40th Anniversary Commemorated In New York Art Exhibition

By goodblacknews on September 22, 2014

ntozake_shangeCommemorating the 40th anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s groundbreaking choreopoem For Colored Girls is an introspective exhibition, i found god in myself, which is kicking off the fall season at The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from Sept. 19 to January 2015.  Her work i found god in myself explores issues of femininity and gender, love and loss, empowerment and sisterhood.

Since its debut performance in California in 1974, Shange’s work has captivated, provoked, inspired and transformed audiences all over the world. Since, the work has remained a cornerstone of feminist, black, and LGBTQ-theory studies in colleges and theaters alike, both in the United States and abroad.
Shange is a past recipient of the The Women of Power Legacy Award, which recognizes outstanding impact, achievement and leadership by women in business, the arts, education, government and other influential industries. Black Enterprise recognized Shange in 2011 for her body of work as a playwright, poet, and self-proclaimed feminist who addressed issues relating to race and gender.
Turning to the choreopoem not simply as an engaging work of text or drama but as a well of social, political and deeply personal issues affecting the lives of women of color, the New York exhibition will feature 20 specially commissioned pieces in honor of each individual poem, additional non-commissioned artworks on display at satellite locations that address the work’s themes and archival material donated by Shange. The exhibition’s title is drawn from one of the last lines recited in the finale poem a laying on of hands. The title suggests that navigating through the complexities of what it means to be of color and female is only enlightened by an understanding, acceptance and appreciation of self. With self-empowerment comes the process of  “…moving to the ends of their own rainbows.”

Bill Cosby to Loan African-American Art Collection to Smithsonian Institution

By goodblacknews on September 16, 2014

Bill Cosby
‘To me, it’s a way for people to see what exists and to give voice to many of these artists who were silenced for so long,’ Cosby said. (Photograph: Rick Cinclair/AP)

After amassing a private collection of African-American art over four decades, Bill Cosby and his wife Camille plan to showcase their holdings for the first time in an exhibition planned at the Smithsonian Institution.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art announced Monday that the entire Cosby collection will go on view in November in a unique exhibit juxtaposing African-American art with African art.
The collection, which will be loaned to the museum, includes works by such leading African-American artists as Beauford Delaney, Faith Ringgold, Jacob Lawrence, Augusta Savage and Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Cosby collection of more than 300 African American paintings, prints, sculptures and drawings has never been loaned or seen publicly, except for one work of art.
“It’s so important to show art by African-American artists in this exhibition,” Cosby said in a written statement. “To me, it’s a way for people to see what exists and to give voice to many of these artists who were silenced for so long, some of whom will speak no more.”
The exhibit, “Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue”, will open November 9th and will be on view through early 2016 in Washington. It will be organized by themes, placing pieces from African artists in the Smithsonian collection near similar works from African-American artists in Cosby’s collection. Curators said it will explore ideas about history, creativity, power, identity and artistry.
Some highlights include rare 18th and early 19th-century portraits by Baltimore-based artist Joshua Johnston, explorations of black spirituality in the 1894 piece “The Thankful Poor” by Henry Ossawa Tanner and Cosby family quilts.
“The exhibition will encourage all of us to draw from the creativity that is Africa, to recognize the shared history that inextricably links Africa and the African diaspora and to seek the common threads that weave our stories together,” said museum director Johnnetta Betsch Cole, in announcing the exhibit.
The exhibition of Cosby’s collection is part of the African art museum’s 50th anniversary.
article via theguardian.com

The Black Victorians: Astonishing Portraits Unseen for 120 Years on Exhibit in London Through November

By goodblacknews on September 16, 2014
Member of the African choir
Discovered … Member of the African Choir, London Stereoscopic Company, 1891. (Photograph: Courtesy of © Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The African Choir were a group of young South African singers that toured Britain between 1891 and 1893. They were formed to raise funds for a Christian school in their home country and performed for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, a royal residence on the Isle of Wight. At some point during their stay, they visited the studio of the London Stereoscopic Company to have group and individual portraits made on plate-glass negatives. That long-lost series of photographs, unseen for 120 years, is the dramatic centrepiece of an illuminating new exhibition called Black Chronicles II.
“The portraits were last shown in the London Illustrated News in 1891,” says Renée Mussai, who has co-curated the show at London’s Rivington Place alongside Mark Sealy MBE, director of Autograph ABP, a foundation that focuses on black cultural identity often through the use of overlooked archives. “The Hulton Archive, where they came from, did not even know they existed until we uncovered them while excavating their archive as part of my PhD project.”
The London Stereoscopic Company specialised in carte de visites – small photographs printed on cards that were often traded by collectors or used by performers for publicity purposes – and, as their name suggests, they were all in stereo which, when seen through a special viewer, gave the illusion of a three-dimensional photograph.
The enlarged portraits of the African Choir, which line one wall of the exhibition, were made by Mike Spry, a specialist in printing from glass plates who was coaxed out of retirement to undertake the meticulous process in his garden shed. They are arresting both for the style and assurance of the sitters – some of the women look like they could be modelling for Vogue – and for the way they challenge the received narrative of the history of black people in Britain.
“Black Chronicles II is part of a wider ongoing project called The Missing Chapter,” says Mussai, “which uses the history of photography to illuminate the missing chapters in British history and culture, especially black history and culture. There is a widespread misconception that black experience in Britain begins with the arrival of the Empire Windrush and the first Jamaican immigrants in 1948, but, as this exhibition shows, there is an incredible archive of images of black people in Britain that goes right back to the invention of photography in the 1830s.”
Near the African choir shots, there is an equally striking portrait of Major Musa Bhai, a Ceylon-born Muslim who was converted to Christianity in colonial India. He accompanied the family of William Booth, founder of theSalvation Army, to England in 1888 as a high-profile advocate for the organisation. As Mussai notes, there “are several intertwining narratives – colonial, cultural and personal – embedded in these images, but what is often startling is how confident and self-contained many of the sitters are as they occupy the frame.”

Sara Forbes Bonetta. Brighton, 1862.
Sara Forbes Bonetta. Brighton, 1862. (Photograph: Courtesy of Paul Frecker collection/The Library of Nineteenth-Century Photography)

Black Chronicles II is punctuated by several such surprising shots, some of well-known people but many of ordinary individuals caught up in the indiscriminate sweep of colonial and postcolonial history. Among the former is Sara Forbes Bonetta, perhaps the most celebrated black British Victorian, who was photographed by two pre-eminent portrait photographers, Camilla Silvy and Julia Margaret Cameron.
Captured aged five by slave raiders in west Africa, Forbes Bonetta was rescued by Captain Frederick E Forbes, then presented as a “gift” to Queen Victoria. Forbes, who rechristened the child after his ship, the Bonetta, later wrote of the proud moment when he realised that Forbes Bonetta “would be a present from the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites.”
More haunting is the portrait of Dejazmatch Alamayou Tewodros, an Ethiopian prince who was orphaned at the age of seven, when his father died rather than surrender to the British troops that had surrounded his castle in what was then Abyssinia. Alamayou was brought to England by Sir Robert Napier and adopted by the intriguingly named explorer Captain Tristram Speedy. Alamayou died in England of pleurisy in 1879.

71 Year-Old Bodybuilder Sam "Sonny" Bryant Jr. Inspires at Health and Fitness Expo

By goodblacknews on August 31, 2014

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Sam “Sonny” Bryant Jr. is a rarity.  He is a champion bodybuilder, and at the ripe old age of 71, he is still going strong.
“I just keep competing,” Bryant said at the I’m The Biggest Winner Family Health & Fitness Expo in Austell, Georgia. “I love it. It’s a lifestyle.”
With a body that puts most men half his age to shame, Bryant’s rippling physique is testimony to years-long hard work and dedicated commitment.
He works out twice a day alongside a full time, overnight job.  “I’ve got a room full of trophies,” said Bryant, who was invited to the Expo as part of a roster of quality experts and motivational speakers. “I can’t even count them all.”
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He first hit the gym to relive the stress of a failing marriage. Within months, Bryant was hooked. Now, he can deadlift 425lbs.  “I’ve been doing this for 27 years,” he said. “I used to do three or four contests a year, and I’d always have at least two trophies when I come home, so I’ve got over 70 or 80 trophies.”
sam-sonny-bryant-bodybuilder-_s87dBryant wants to prove that living a full and active life is possible at any age. All you need is the right approach, he says.  “I don’t think about my age,” said the Georgia native. “You’re going to age, that’s inevitable, but you don’t have to get old. I know people younger than me, but they’re older then me.”
“I can’t see giving up; this is my life. People ask me when I’m going to retire. I’m still working a 40 hours a week job. I say, why should I quit? I’ve figured this stuff out. More people die retired than die working.”
He believes it is never too late to improve your health. Bryant, who said he has never ever taken steroids or performance-enhancing drugs, advises fitness newbies to start off slow and keep doing the work.
“There is no age limit on exercising,” he said. “People got life but they’ve not living. Life is getting out and enjoying yourself. You’ve got to be physical. You’ve got to keep your heart strong.”
“You are not going to jump right in and start out wide open. That’s what happens to most people, they jump right in and think they’re going to look for instant results.”
“Once you start pushing your body, then your body is going to get used to it,” he said. “You just keep doing it, keep doing it, take your time and don’t look for that fast-paced stuff, and I’ll come to you.”
article by Kunbi Tinuoye via thegrio.com

Walker Art Center Opens "Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art" Exhibit Today

By goodblacknews on July 24, 2014
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Senga Nengudi: RSVP at CAMH performance

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is set to present the groundbreaking survey “Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art.”
“Radical Presence” chronicles the development of Black performance in contemporary art beginning with fluxus and conceptual art in the 1960s and extending to the present. While this tradition has previously been contextualized from the perspective of theater and popular culture, its prevalence in visual art has gone largely unexamined until recently. Organized and first presented by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, “Radical Presence” was co-presented in New York City by The Studio Museum in Harlem and New York University’s Grey Art Gallery. The final opportunity to view the exhibition will be at the Walker. The showing opens July 24 and runs through Jan. 4, 2015 in the Target and Friedman galleries.

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Pope.L: Costume at CAMH performance (Photo by Max Fields)

The July 24 launch, a Target Free Thursday Night, with live performances at the Walker by contributing artists Senga Nengudi, Pope.L and Jacolby Satterwhite. Performances continue on Saturday, July 26 with Maren Hassinger and Jamal Cyrus, in addition to a panel discussion hosted by organizing curator Valerie Cassel Oliver from the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and contributing artists Adam Pendleton, Satterwhite, and Xaviera Simmons that addresses the role of performance in their larger artistic practice.
A range of performances and events continue beyond the opening weekend and throughout the run of the exhibition. Beginning in September, the Walker and The Bindery Projects will host Theaster Gates’ “See, Sit, Sup, Sip, Sing: Holding Court” (2012), while additional performances include Benjamin Patterson’s “Activation of Pond” (1962), a performance lecture by Coco Fusco, and Trenton Doyle Hancock’s “Devotion” (2013).

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Jacolby Satterwhite: Orifice at CAMH performance (Photo by Max Fields)

Featuring more than 100 works by some 36 artists, “Radical Presence” includes video and photo documentation of performances, scores and installations, interactive works and artworks created as a result of performance actions, presenting a rich and complex look at this important facet of contemporary art.

‘”Radical Presence’ is a risk-taking exhibition that looks at the vitality of performance-based works by Black artists from the United States and the Caribbean over several decades and across generations,” said Olga Viso, executive director of the Walker. “Engaging works where the performer is often the medium and subject, the exhibition is both provocative and captivating, as it addresses the limits of representation of the Black body and elicits timely reflection on American culture and identity.”
“From seminal works by such highly influential artists as Coco Fusco, Lorraine O’Grady, Pope.L and David Hammons to essential new voices like Theaster Gates, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Xaviera Simmons, ‘Radical Presence’ brings together artists from across generations that push the boundaries of performance,” said Fionn Meade, the Walker’s senior curator of cross-disciplinary platforms. “Ranging from intimate acts done solely for the camera to participatory installations and the tracing of overtly public gestures of celebration and resistance, the Walker is thrilled to welcome such a dynamic and far-ranging exploration.”

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Maren Hassinger: Diaries (Photo by Adam Avila)

Works on view in “Radical Presence” include “Hopes and Dreams: Gestures of Demonstration” (2006-2007), a photographic series by Carrie Mae Weems, “Pond” (1962), a performance score conceived and activated by Benjamin Patterson, documentation of Lorraine O’Grady’s performance, “Mlle, Bourgeoise Noire” (1980-1983), “Eating the Wall Street Journal” (2000) by Pope.L, a sculpture and video installation, “Say It Loud” (2004) by Satch Hoyt, a participatory sculpture meant to be activated by gallery visitors and documentation of Jamal Cyrus’ performance “Texas Fried Tenor” from the series “Learning to Work the Saxophone” (2012).
article via insightnews.com

J Dilla Recording Equipment Headed to the Smithsonian

By goodblacknews on July 20, 2014
J Dilla Recording Equipment Headed to the Smithsonian

J Dilla was only 32 years old when he died in 2006, but in his too-short life, the prolific producer worked with hip-hop icons including Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu, The Roots, De la Soul, Common, and A Tribe Called Quest, even earning a Grammy nomination for his work with Tribe. And now, another honor for the late Detroit beatmaker: His recording equipment will be featured in the Smithsonian.
At the ninth DC Loves Dilla tribute concert on Thursday night, Dilla’s mom, Maureen Yancey, announced onstage that she would donate her son’s custom Minamoog Voyager — one of the last synthesizers Bob Moog built for someone before he died in 2005 — and his MPC to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“I feel it’s necessary to raise the level of art appreciation in the hip-hop sector and honor my son James Dewitt Yancey, one of the most influential individuals in the history of hip-hop,” Dilla’s mom said in a Smithsonian press release announcing the donation.
Below, watch Yancey announce the donation at the benefit concert, which raises money to battle lupus, a disease that might have played a part in Dilla’s early death.

article by Katie Atkinson via billboard.com