"Jennie C. Jones recent exhibitions often feature an amalgam of painting, sound and sculpture.... She manipulates everyday objects related to sound--objects that belong to modes and systems of listening to sound or producing it as well as systems of organizing it--to generate implied sound. And while her sculptures evoke sound and the methodologies by which it is created, they are themselves silent"--Page 15.
"A collection of solicited and selected texts that address the philosophical and practical issues that affect art-making and the marketplace"--P. [4] of cover.
A timely and urgent exploration into the ways artists have grappled with race and grief in modern America, conceived by the great curator Okwui Enwezor Featuring works by more than 30 artists and writings by leading scholars and art historians, this book - and its accompanying exhibition, both conceived by the late, legendary curator Okwui Enwezor - gives voice to artists addressing concepts of mourning, commemoration, and loss and considers their engagement with the social movements, from Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter, that black grief has galvanized. Artists included: Terry Adkins, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kevin Beasley, Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Garrett Bradley, Melvin Edwards, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Charles Gaines, Theaster Gates, Ellen Gallagher, Arthur Jafa, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Rashid Johnson, Jennie C. Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Deana Lawson, Simone Leigh, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Okwui Okpokwasili, Adam Pendleton, Julia Phillips, Howardena Pindell, Cameron Rowland, Lorna Simpson, Sable Elyse Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, Diamond Stingily, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Nari Ward, Carrie Mae Weems, and Jack Whitten. Essays by Elizabeth Alexander, Naomi Beckwith, Judith Butler, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Massimiliano Gioni, Saidiya Hartman, Juliet Hooker, Glenn Ligon, Mark Nash, Claudia Rankine, and Christina Sharpe.
This exhibition features works from every period in Thomas's career, including rarely exhibited watercolors and early abstractions, as well as her signature canvases drawn from a variety of private and public collections. As the work of many African-American abstractionists is only recently coming into the spotlight, this important book on Alma Thomas profiles a truly pioneering figure.
The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is widely recognized as one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary work by artists of the African diaspora and from the continent of Africa itself. 'Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art' draws upon the collection's unparalleled holdings to explore the critical contributions made by black artists to the evolution of visual art in the 20th and 21st centuries.0This revised and expanded edition updates 'Four Generations' with several new texts and nearly 100 images of works that have been added to the collection since the initial publication of this influential and widely praised book. Lavishly illustrated and featuring important contributions by leading art historians, critics, and curators, Four Generations gives an essential overview of some of the most notable artists and movements of the past century, with an emphasis on black artists and their approaches to abstraction in its various forms.0Filled with countless insights and visual treasures, 'Four Generations' is a journey through the momentous legacy of postwar art of the African diaspora.
Endless Shout asks how, why and where performance and improvisation can take place inside a museum. The book documents a six-month series of experimental performances organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, where five participants--Raúl de Nieves, Danielle Goldman, George Lewis, The Otolith Group and taisha paggett--collectively led a series of improvisation experiments. These include Miya Masaoka's A Line Becomes a Circle, which pays tribute to Shiki Masaoka, a subversive Japanese haiku writer; jumatatu m. poe and Jerome "Donte" Beacham's Let 'im Move You, addressing the history of J-Sette, a dance form popularized at historically black colleges; and A Recital for Terry Admins by composer George Lewis. The book includes an essay by curator Anthony Elms, conversations with Jennie C. Jones and Wadada Leo Smith on themes of rhythm, rehearsal and improvisation, plus new works created specifically for the book, such as a script by The Otolith Group on blackness and digital color correction.
Magnetic fields, an introduction / Erin Dziedzic and Melissa Messina -- Black, woman, abstract artist / Lowery Stokes Sims -- Conversations. Lauren Haynes on Mavis Pusey -- Sandra Jackson-Dumont on Maren Hassinger -- Melissa Messina on Chakaia Booker -- Kathryn Wat on Lilian Thomas Burwell -- Alice Thorson on Sylvia Snowden -- Kindred : materializing representation in the abstract / Valerie Cassel Oliver -- Conversations. Erin Dziedzic on Nannette Carter -- Nanette Carter on Evangeline "EJ" Montgomery -- Allison Glenn on Candida Alvarez -- Michelle Perron on Gilda Snowden -- Gia M. Hamilton on Deborah Dancy -- For women of color who have considered art in which abstraction is enough / Lilly Wei
A timely consideration of African-American artists' rich engagement with the history of art from the twentieth century, this book is the winner of the James A. Porter and David C. Driskell Book Award for African American Art History. Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition presents works by African American artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries together with works by the early-twentieth-century European artists with whom they engaged. Black artists have investigated, interrogated, invaded, entangled, annihilated, or immersed themselves in the aesthetics, symbolism, and ethos of European art for more than a century. The powerful push and pull of this relationship constitutes a distinct tradition for many African American artists who source the master narratives of art history to critique, embrace, or claim their own space. This groundbreaking catalog--accompanying a major exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.--explores the connections and frictions around modernism in the works of artists such as Romare Bearden, Pablo Picasso, Faith Ringgold, Renee Cox, Robert Colescott, Norman Lewis, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems and Henri Matisse. The volume explores how blackness has often been conceived from the standpoint of these international and intergenerational connections and presents the divergent and complex works born of these important dialogues.
Elia Alba began photographing artists like LaToya Ruby Frazier and Mickalene Thomas in 2012. To give voice to her community, Alba hosted dinners for US-based artists of color, with themes like Baltimore, Race, and Identity (in honor of Freddy Gray) and Racial Subjugation in Latin America. Her photographic series The Supper Club captures portraits and conversations from these socially engaged dinners, which addressed issues ranging from sanctuary, policing, and post-black identity to the intersectional entanglements of gender, race, and privilege. Inspired by Vanity Fair's "Hollywood Issue," Alba's portraits capture each artist's unique voice, transforming them into iconic images.
