Vaginal Creme Davis and Fertile Latoya Jackson, That Fertile Feeling (part 1), 1982
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Wildcat
Kahlil Joseph’s Film Meditates on the Origins of an All-Black Rodeo in Oklahoma
A dreamlike narrative binds cowboy and an angelic specter clad in white in director Kahlil Joseph’s exploration of a little-known African-American rodeo subculture. Joseph, who is part of the Los Angeles-based What Matters Most film collective, visited the annual August rodeo in the sparsely populated Oklahoma town of Grayson (previously Wildcat), an event that attracts African-American bull riders, barrel racers and cowgirls from all over the Midwest and southern USA. He set out to celebrate the origins of the rodeo by paying respect to the spirit of Aunt Janet, a member of the family who founded the event, passed away last year and is embodied as the young girl in the film. “Black people are light years more advanced than the ideas and images that circulate would have you believe. The spaces we control and exist are my ground zero for filming, at least so far, and there are opportunities for me to tap into the energy,” says Joseph who has also made films for musicians including Shabazz Palaces and Seu Jorge. “So an all-black town with an all-black rodeo in the American heartland was a kind of vortex or portal through which I could actually show this.” Wildcat is scored by experimental musician Flying Lotus, who has previously collaborated with Joseph on a short to accompany his 2012 album Until the Quiet Comes, which is showing during Sundance London this weekend.
beautiful
Select artwork from Nigerian-American artist Toyin Odutola.
“My work deals with interaction; employing “contrast” as a distinguishing method, I explore that interaction–hence the inclusion of Whiteness as motif into the dialogue of my work. Subjectively, the Otherness of Black is my representation of “Inclusiveness,” while the common Inclusiveness of White is my inverted “Otherness.”
Essentially, the relationship between “Otherness and Inclusiveness” manifests in Black being the positive mark imprinted into the neutral space of the foreign White picture plane.
The overall effect is meant to be stark, minimal, and streamlined: the Black figure as the molded silhouette punctuating the White which seems to engulf it.”
Toyin Odutola (x)
Her book Alphabet: A Selected Index of Anecdotes & Drawings is available for purchase.
(via teliottmansa)
William Hawkins, “Magical Toad (Kin Frog)” (1987). Enamel on Masonite, 43 x 48 in (109.2 x 121.9 cm)
Beast in Show: William Hawkins and the Animal Spirit
William Hawkins, “Two Dinosaurs Wrestling” (1989). Enamel on Masonite, 48 x 56 1/2 in (121.9 x…
William Pope. L, Harriet Tubman Spinning the Universe, 1992, peanut butter, charcoal, joint compound, collage, acrylic paint, 10×15’.
“Why do I write? Because the imperative to do so has been the strongest single force in my life and though I have been sidetracked by many, many muses, abused this one and wished it away, anxious always about the exacting nature of the commitment, I think it has finally claimed me. I have finally accepted the fact that, yes, writing is what I am suppose to do with my life; it is the way I affirm myself. […] The constant tug between private aloofness and community and social sharing has shaped my personality, my world-view and my work. […] Ultimately, we are all nothing more- or less- than children of the universe.”
— Olive Senior, Interview in Callaloo, 1988
(Source: voices.cla.umn.edu)
An exhibition featuring three related painting and sculpture installations created by Brooklyn artist Caitlin Cherry for the Brooklyn Museum is the latest in the continuing Raw/Cooked series of work by under-the-radar Brooklyn artists.
The exhibition, Hero Safe, will be on view June 7 through September 1, 2013.
Photo caption: Caitlin Cherry in her studio. Photo by Pierce Jackson (photo courtesy Brookly Museum)
Jayson Keeling, Solo, 2009
Still from single channel videoWork in Psychosexual at Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: from the exhibition Extracts and Verses, Liberation Two-Piece (2013)
Congratulations to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye!
The recently announced shortlist for Tate Britain’s 2013 Turner Prize includes painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (London, b. 1977), who readers may recall was the only painter included in the New Museum’s 2012 Triennial “The Ungovernables.” Turner Prize jurors select specific exhibitions, and Yiadom-Boakye was singled out for “Extracts and Verses,” a 2012 exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery. “Yiadom-Boakye’s intriguing paintings appear traditional but are in fact much more innovative,” according to the Tate’s press release.”Her portraits of imaginary people use invented pre-histories and raise pertinent questions about how we read pictures in general, particularly with regard to black subjects. “ In NYC she is represented by Jack Shainman, where she had a solo in 2012. more
Images: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Milk For A Maestro, 2012. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery. Photo: Marcus Leith. (top)
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, The Generosity, 2010. Photo: Marcus Leith
