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Posts tagged as “African-American Artists”

Today’s Winning Google Doodle Invoking Black Lives Matter was Designed by High School Sophomore Akilah Johnson

By goodblacknews on March 21, 2016

“My Afrocentric Life,” by Akilah Johnson (courtesy of Google 2016)
“My Afrocentric Life,” by Akilah Johnson (courtesy of Google 2016)

article by Michael Cavna via washingtonpost.com
JUST LAST month, Akilah Johnson was “surprised and overwhelmed” when she learned that she was a national finalist in the “Doodle 4 Google” contest for grade-schoolers.
Akilah, a sophomore at Eastern Senior High School in Northeast Washington, has just been named Google’s big winner in the national contest, topping the 53 state and territory champions, whose work had been culled from about 100,000 student entries.
“It is really overwhelming,” Akilah tells The Post’s Comic Riffs, minutes after receiving the news Monday during a ceremony at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.  “I was so excited, I started crying,” Akilah says. “I didn’t even look at anybody — I was just looking at the framed copy [of the Doodle] they gave me.”
Akilah is the contest’s first winner from Washington, as D.C. was not eligible to enter the states-only competition in past years. (The Post’s Comic Riffs had joined the chorus of voices urging that the District be included.)
This year’s contest theme was: “What makes me…me.” Akilah drew a box-braided Doodle titled “My Afrocentric Life,” using color pencils, black crayons and Sharpie markers. The Doodle includes symbols of black heritage and signs representing the Black Lives Matter movement.  “Although it felt like forever making this picture, it only took me about two weeks,” Akilah told Comic Riffs last month.

ART: Toyin Ojih Odutola's Stunning Ballpoint Imagery Explores Blackness and The Power Of Ink

By goodblacknews on December 9, 2015
Toyin Ojih Odutola. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Mineral Survey, 2015. Marker and pencil on paper. 14 x 17 inches (paper).

In the practical world, there are myriad shades of black.  For artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, this quandary doesn’t frustrate: It inspires.
In an August 2013 interview, the Nigerian-American portraitist recalled a moment of revelation: “I’m doing black on black on black, trying to make it as layered as possible in the deepness of the blackness to bring it out. I noticed the pen became this incredible tool. The black ballpoint ink on blackboard would become copper tone and I was like, ‘Wow, this isn’t even black at all!'”
Layering shades and types of black media, she realized, could bend how the colors presented in surprising ways. “The blackboard was like this balancing platform for the ink to become something else,” she said.
“Ballpoint pen ink is the reason I draw the way that I do,” Ojih Odutola told The Huffington Post via email. Though in the past decade of work she’s incorporated other media such as charcoal and marker into her repertoire, she’s continued to explore the themes of skin, blackness and perception in her portraiture.
“Growing up in America as a black individual,” said Ojih Odutola, who was born in Ife, Nigeria, and later moved to the U.S., “you can walk into any room and your skin is the first read. From this reality, I treat the skin of my subjects as an arena to expose contradictions — to expand and constrict.”
Her portraits, whether of white or black subjects, layer white on white and black on black, bringing out the texture and sheen of the skin rather than the shade or color we might typically perceive. “I build and build upon the surface various striations in layers,” said Ojih Odutola. “Some may describe them as anatomical, sinewy or aesthetically reminiscent of hair. This style is none of those things: it’s about texture, tactility and mezzanines.”

What does that say about identity, but more interestingly, what does that say about what we are accustomed to seeing when we see an image of a face or bodies? Toyin Ojih Odutola

By distorting the representation of a quality that silently governs so much of America’s social prejudices and injustices — skin color — her work pushes us to look at everything else about the subject.
“I became infatuated with this idea of filtering and transforming. Taking something concrete and very direct … and messing it up,” she explained. “It wasn’t about masking the source, but about stretching how an image can be transformed, what it can become, how it can be misleading and also revealing.”
Ojih Odutola found she wanted to question, more and more, how her work deconstructed our default views of identity, she said. She’d ask herself as she worked, “What does that say about identity, but more interestingly, what does that say about what we are accustomed to seeing when we see an image of a face or bodies?”
Toyin Ojih Odutola. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Unlike classical portraits, Ojih Odutola’s may not even be recognizable to the subjects. “I never looked at portraits as indicative of the sitters in any way,” she explained. “I looked at portraits as a means for the artist to create his or her own space to invent.” As a Nigerian-American immigrant, finding a space of her own has been particularly vital. “It helps me deal with that lost, powerless feeling of wandering around as a Nigerian-American kid not feeling like the ground I was stepping on could truly be mine … I wanted to create my own terrain.”
In the landscapes she’s created of her subjects’ very skin, Ojih Odutola has succeeded at creating her own terrain; but more than that, she’s found a way to help us all, slowly and deliberately, re-envision how we can see each other’s faces and bodies, without easy categorizations.
Toyin Ojih Odutola’s “Of Context and Without” will be on display from Dec. 11, 2015 through Jan. 30, 2016 at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City. Check out more from the show below, and find more from the artist at her website.
article by Claire Fallon via huffingtonpost.com

Tuskegee University Receives Four Paintings by Benny Andrews

By goodblacknews on November 1, 2015

Artist Benny Andrews
Artist Benny Andrews

Tuskegee University in Alabama received a donation of four paintings by the late artist Benny Andrews from the United Negro College Fund. The paintings have a value of more than $100,000.
Andrews is known as an abstract expressionist. Many of his works are images from his childhood in Georgia. Andrews died in 2001.
Grandmother's-Favorite3Brian L. Johnson, president of Tuskegee University, stated that the university “thanks both the UNCF and the Berry Andrews Foundation for this wonderful gift that will further enhance the university’s aesthetic, artistic, and cultural appeal to both students and visitors worldwide. I was Benny Andrews’ wish to share his artworks and legacy to inspire African American artists, art enthusiasts, and students around the country.”
Nene Humphrey, the artist’s widow and president of the Andrews Humphrey Family Foundation said “the placement of these artworks will enhance Benny Andrews’ legacy and provide an opportunity to educate new audiences about this work.”
article via jbhe.com

"Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks" Exhibit Showing at Brooklyn Museum Until August

By goodblacknews on April 6, 2015
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s notebooks are on display at the Brooklyn Museum. (Credit: Tseng Kwong Chi/Muna Tseng Dance Projects)

As a child, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) was a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum, which he used to visit with his mother and where he got a globalist view of art history that would provide fuel for his own later painting. He’s back at the museum now, part of that global history, in “Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks.”

At the start of his career in the late 1970s, Mr. Basquiat was better known for words than for images: short, enigmatic, rap-rhythm phrases that he wrote on New York City walls and signed with a “SAMO©” tag. The phrases, like his Expressionist-style paintings, may have looked spontaneous, but the 160 unbound notebook pages in the exhibition show they were far from that. We see words tried out and scratched out, listed and rejected, sometimes accompanied by drawings. Some of the images are as avid and original as you would expect from this artist, but it’s the words that stand out. He was a poet who happened to find art first, and this is a poet’s show. (Through Aug. 23, 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, NY, brooklynmuseum.org.)

article by Holland Cotter via nytimes.com

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

Amazing Black Artists to Watch in 2014

By goodblacknews on January 5, 2014

No, not every deserving artist gets their first taste of attention through one of the art world’s largest platforms such as the legendary Art Basel show, or the Frieze Art Fair. In particular, African-American artists and other artists of color are still working towards greater visibility in the highest spheres of the rarified art community. Thus, there can never be too many lists bringing attention to the abundance of talented creators on the cusp of discovery who are ready to emerge.
Here are the fresh faces and more established visionaries still gaining ground that you need to know in 2014. The African diasporan artists compiled in the photo gallery above carry forth the traditions set in motion by visual artists from significant eras such as the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement, yet speak with new images and forms that lead us into the future.
With their various approaches to creativity, visual communication, and craft, these artists each examine critical issues of the past, present and future that reflect our shared experiences across the intersecting lines of race, class, gender, sexuality and politics. Through their works, the experiences of those of the African diaspora — and beyond — are critiqued, celebrated and preserved.
Visibility is essential to supporting the continued success of these artists, and ensuring that black artists — who are increasingly gaining recognition — continue to render our images in refined and thoughtful forms from the art world’s center stage. Regardless of whether these artists ever appear at Art Basel, or already have, please keep your eyes to the wall (and in some cases the floor, ceiling, and sidewalks), because you will want to follow these folks, who are the latest provocateurs, innovators and dreamers.
These selections are not ranked in any order to acknowledge equally the importance of each artist’s style — with the awareness that there are likely more great visual “voices” out there who deserve recognition.  Click here to see more inspiring art.
article by Souleo via thegrio.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

Brooklyn-based Artist Jennie C. Jones Wins $50,000 Wein Prize

By goodblacknews on January 22, 2013

Artist Jennie C. Jones
Artist Jennie C. Jones

Studio Museum in Harlem is awarding its Wein Prize, one of the most lucrative in contemporary art, to Jennie C. Jones, a 44-year-old Brooklyn-based painter and sculptor whose work – which she describes as “listening as a conceptual practice” – centers on music.

The prize, with a $50,000 award, has been given every year since 2006 to established or emerging African-American artists. It was started by George Wein, a founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, in honor of his wife, Joyce Alexander Wein, a longtime trustee of the museum who died in 2005.
l1060599The prize, whose announcement was delayed by Hurricane Sandy, will be given at a museum gala on Feb. 4. Thelma Golden, the museum’s director and chief curator, said in an interview that Ms. Jones was chosen “not only to celebrate the rigor and strength of her practice, but also because of the thinking about what this amazingly generous prize could do for her at this point in her career.”
Ms. Jones, who will have a solo exhibition in May at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, has been featured in several shows over the last decade at the Studio Museum and in Chelsea. Her work often uses the language of Minimalism to explore, and sometimes  appropriate, avant-garde jazz and other modern music.
“I kept seeing these amazing parallels in ideologies for both disciplines, especially in jazz and abstraction,” Ms. Jones has said. “Conceptualism allows these different media to occupy the same space.”
article by Randy Kennedy via nytimes.com

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.