Culture Vulture: Black Art, Black Style...
You can’t really be a doctoral student in performance studies in the middle of the village and NOT officially become a contemporary black art nerd. Three years ago, when I first came to graduate school I had never heard of William Pope L., Keith Piper, Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Isaac Julien, Adrian Piper or David Hammons—now I cant imagine life without them. I’m utterly convinced that post-1960s black conceptual, installation, and performance art is god’s great gift to young minds like me.
Though it doesn’t exactly fall into the category of “conceptual art” (well, actually, it does…) the new Black Style Now exhibit at the Museum of the City of
Just a thought: wouldn’t this have been the perfect venue for the history of style and house ball culture to have been included? Can you imagine the style and innovations of the House of Prada or the House of Mizrahi right alongside the Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt? Hmm, Curators, holla at me…
The exhibition catalogue The Way We Wore: Black Style Then is edited by McCollom and features a foreword by Geoffrey Holder. Catch the show on view at the Museum of the City of
Also, last night one of my favorite art galleries in New York City, the Longwood Arts Gallery, whose previous exhibits have included the widely provocative Down Low: The DL in Contemporary Art and Do You Think I’m Disco? opened its brand new art exhibit Fred Wilson (hands down one of my favorite black conceptualists) is curating Black Now, which is a presentation of the artist’s observations about the contemporary meaning of the word "black" and the color black with items he has collected—and continues to collect—from ebay.com merchandise to popular culture. Artists include: Francisco Alvarado-Juárez, Jorge Julián Aristzábal, Candida Alvarez, Chakaia Booker, Rashawn Griffin, Heather Hart, Jason Irwin, Kalup Linzy, Carl Pope, Jose A. Ruiz, Will Villalongo, and Kara Walker. Betti-Sue Hertz’s exhibition Street Disturbance include artists Etcétera, William Pope.L (pictured on left), and Surveillance Camera Players who work in the public sphere and share a penchant for humor and agitprop to address political issues. Eddie Torres’ exhibition Iconoclasmic features works by artists Negar Ahkami, Teresa Ascencao, and Dylan Mortimer who employ visual forms found in mass culture—such as comics and advertising imagery—to engage the tension between freedom of speech and religious imagery. Edwin Ramoran’s project Everyday Is Like Sunday breaks down the professional/amateur binary by introducing works in various media by a select, intergenerational group of underrecognized Bronx artists identified through a call for artists, recommendations, and studio visits
Im out,
Frank Mizrahi
