Month: February 2004

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LONDON – Visitors to Britain will find a new stop on London’s site-seeing route this spring: a usable public toilet enclosed in one-way mirrored glass situated on a sidewalk near the River Thames. However, it seems more like child’s play or someone begging for a perversity to be played out in public. In a pinch I would probably use it however, it would be strange for some visitors to come walking up to view the “sculpture” while I was trying to take a whizz. I’m open to new ideas but this one is perverse.

Mr. Picassohead looks like fun. 🙂

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Quinnipiac University | Women’s Studies program to present “Cyborg Mommy” on March 3. Ms. Cyborg Mommy is awesome! We went to grad school together.

Well, it’s been since Wed. morning I’ve had a new computer. I bought a Dell. This is the second new computer I’ve owned. All the others were built by myself or other computer friends. Right at this moment I hear nothing. My old computer buzzes and makes strange noises. It’s taken a few days of trying totransfer files to the new computer. I haven’t been successful with everything I need yet. I couldn’t use XP to do it. My old machine has a CD burner that doesn’t work well. Actually, it locks up my computer making me have to reboot. Final solution: copying all needed files to the D: drive, remove and install in the new computer. Problem solved… It won’t get done for a couple more days however.

Dancer “channeling” ancestral spirits spins in a trance at an Eke Ekpe festival. Men with sticks keep the dancer from getting close to others at the festival, because it’s believed even the slightest touch from a dancer could kill. Photo: Josh Rogosin, NPR News [click to view NPR site]

Vodun is an ancient religion practiced by some 30 million people in the West African nations of Benin, Togo and Ghana. In the United States, Voudou (Voodoo) has been sensationalized by Hollywood, demonized by Christian missionaries and parodied in New Orleans tourist shops. They got it all wrong. “Voodoo is older than the world,” says Janvier Houlonon, a tour guide in Benin and a lifelong voodoo practitioner. “They say that voodoo is like the marks or the lines which are in our hands — we born with them. Voodoo are in the leaves, in the earth. Voodoo is everywhere.”

African slaves brought voodoo with them to plantations in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and Louisiana. And with them creative arts that include ceramics, textiles, weaving, and certainly a musical tradition that keeps feeding the world as we know it. However, the non-musical traditions that came to this hemisphere along with those enslaved isn’t nearly as recognized.

Speaking of indigo, again, let me mention African American quilting traditions because they are so powerful within the community. Gee’s Bend, AL has recently come under the spotlight. But, what has been the reception of visual artists of the African diaspora during the past four hundred plus years? That’s in both N. America and Europe. Sad to say, but that record is pitiful, although things *seem* to be slowly changing.

The single most significant reason this is important is because Miami and environs has a wealth of varying West African traditions: Haitian, Cuban, Brazilian, southern African American, Trinidadian, and others. Visual art in this context would seem right at home and it is. However, much of it is of clichéd and overworked motifs. Some of it has not been seen for what it is. It’s anyone’s guess as to why that is the case. One would think that curators and art historians would be aware that such work exists, and outside of the Cuban and Haitian cultural contexts. Afterall, my family moved to Florida from South Carolina back in 1908 and, that state had one of the highest concentrations of Africans in all of N. American.

Those that are aware of African Caribbean visual culture shouldn’t think that nothing exists from the southern U.S. Aside from quilting there are other manifestations that thankfully Robert F. Thompson, Ph.D. has brought to our attention. Some of it has yet to be fully documented, such as my pictorial study of African American burial decorations. Are you seeing the connections?

Mami Wata, who gets mentioned on the NPR program, is twofold: she is an ancient and indigenous deity, part of the widespread belief in spirits that live in the waters, but she is most often depicted as an alien creature such as a mermaid. Mami Wata is a fully African spirit. This particular image incorporates imagery from colonization and demonstrates the influence of foreign culture on African art, which is organic and constantly evolving. As African culture has been exposed to Western, Islamic and Indian culture and art, the images of Mami Wata have changed over time, yet her personality has remained the same.

Le Monde’s coverage of the Palm Beach Classic International Fine Art & Antique Fair, which ended over the weekend, told me I made the correct decision by not attending. It’s problematic enough being poor and black without walking amongst the wealthy scrutinizing their art buying and questioning their tastes. I probably wouldn’t know what to say if I actually bumped into William Koch while browsing through the event. No, I know what to say. The question is, would I actually say it. *wink*

And, I missed this lecture at the Palm Beach Classic last week! I could kick myself. Thursday, Feb., 5, 3pm – Lecturer: Wayne Heathcote, “How I Became a Primitive Art Dealer.”

[thanks: ionarts]

Let me tell you a bit about the artist talk I attended yesterday. It was Kerry James Marshall, artist, teacher, and among other things, MacArthur Fellow. The latter is one of the nation’s (U.S.) greatest honors and awards. The fact that he is extremely articulate makes any lecture by him more than worth your time. Anyway, there has been a multitude of online and offline discussions about the state of contemporary art. Marshall has, for himself, raised the bar far above the today’s average artists’ expectations. He says that the responsibility of the artist must be to contribute to the history of not only the field (art history) but, of cultural history in general. Art, he feels, should be noticed not because of its shock value but, because it actually challenges how we view the field of art yet contributes something to it at the same time. Easy? Hell no! That reminds me of three items on a list I wrote over ten years ago about what makes truly great artwork:

1) a central aesthetic idea and the depth of that idea.

2) work that has fidelity to pre-existing aesthetics.

3) work that breaks new ground.

However, there are two other items that are essential:

4) a location and audience to engage in dialogue.

5) work that has the ability to withstand the crucible of aesthetic discourse.

There were three other items on my list that preceeded the above but, I think this is the most important part of list.

"Woman with a Ball", 1965, Mixed media on canvas, 58.25 x 49.75 in. Neumann Family Collection, Photo: Robert McKeever © 2003 Richard Artschwager /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Saturday, 31 Jan., Richard Artschwager presented his “art talk” to one of MoCA’s typical audiences made up of varying ages and, artists, collectors and students. The talk started off in a jumble of words summing up to eventually gave those in attendance something to grasp. That something was the various elements that make up his work: forms, shapes, formal issues, use of celotex. It wasn’t that revealing but, it guided us through his disjointed talk laced with images. Having a few notes of humor here and there definitely helped keep people in their seats until the questions rolled in.

One question concerned his 2002 painting of G.W. Bush, current U.S. President. His answer stated his work had no specific socio-political commentary. That was an interesting response after reading the following by curator, Bonnie Clearwater, “In examining Artschwager’s entire body of paintings, however, it becomes clear that there is a strong emotional element to his subjects.” He was purposefully evasive in other questions as well. However, if one is to gain some clues as to this ambiguity one would find a rather limited sphere of cultural influence as reflected in the paintings. That comes from the predominance of Euro-American faces and interior spaces associated with affluence. Isn’t everything political?

I found the work had some qualities I like, the celotex surface itself, and the scale of the works, but, in general, the “strong emotional element[s]” of his work must, I assume, come from the formal issues and the material itself, not the subject matter. It was all pretty bland, including the portrait of G.W. Bush.

I was cleaning out my old emails and found a reference I thought was interesting. The email came from a Brit that lives in the French Alps and every summer takes great pics of Le Tour de France. After looking at danlmarmot‘s latest additions to his website, this struck a chord. “Up into the French Alps to discover the beauty of riding your bike in and around the mountains, La Marmotte is one of the most popular cycling events in the Alps.”