Art for Sale Page 2

The new SCAD Museum of Art is a significantly expanded and re-imagined contemporary art and design museum conceived and designed expressly to enrich the educational milieu for SCAD students, professors, and art and design enthusiasts. SCAD Museum of Art re-opens to the public on Saturday, October 29. Inaugural exhibitions at the new museum include: Bill Viola, “The Crossing”; Liza Lou, “Let the Light In”; Kendall Buster, “New Growth: Stratum Field”; a solo exhibition of recent works by Kehinde Wiley; and selections from the SCAD Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection, including the Evans Collection of African American Art, presented in the new Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies within the museum.

“SCAD has a tradition of fostering innovative and dynamic art experiences, and the SCAD Museum of Art advances this rich tradition,” commented SCAD President Paula Wallace, who initiated and oversaw the development of the expanded museum in Savannah. “Rather than a place to view artworks in isolation, our museum is a kinetic think-tank, a collaborative wellspring of ideas and inspiration for SCAD students and professors.”

In keeping with the university’s mission, a year-round program of exhibitions, installations, performances and museum programs and events will engage with SCAD’s 41 majors and more than 50 minors – from fashion and fibers to painting and sound design. This programming will also provide students and professors across all disciplines a collaborative space to experience celebrated works of art and design, and to interact with the renowned and emerging artists who create them.

SCAD Museum of Art provides one square foot of academic space for every square foot of exhibition space. Galleries act as extensions of the traditional classroom, and, on the second floor of the museum, 12 classrooms create expansive learning laboratories. These museum classrooms are specifically designed to facilitate the learning experience – wide hallways and doorframes allow for easy movement and study of large works of art, and storage facilities located among the classrooms allow access to all of SCAD’s collections and temporary works.

SCAD continues its award-winning legacy of adaptive reuse in the museum’s distinctive design and execution. The new museum joins past and present by uniting the ruins of the Central of Georgia Railroad 1853 depot, a National Historic Landmark and the only surviving antebellum railroad complex in the country, with 65,000 square feet of new space. At 82,000 square feet total, the revitalized and re-envisioned structure honors the historical elements of the older buildings, preserving parts of the ruins as they exist today, while also featuring modern applications and materials. An 86-foot-tall steel and glass lantern punctuates the museum design and will soon adorn the Savannah skyline with a beacon of light.

The design of the new museum was conceived by President Wallace and Senior Vice President for College Resources Glenn Wallace. SCAD alumnus and professor Christian Sottile of Sottile & Sottile Architects executed the design, and it was supervised by SCAD alumnus Martin Smith, executive director of design and new construction.

“All SCAD facilities are nonpareil in design and in provenance, in form and in function – and when setting about to plan the museum, this distinct legacy guided our vision to create an inspired educational space,” said Glenn Wallace. “The museum engages with the fabric of its history, weaving textures of long ago with cutting-edge design. In many respects, it is a work of art in its own right – a manifestation of the dynamic and unrivaled art and design experiences that it will inspire.”

The expansive facility includes galleries and classrooms, a 250-seat theater, a terrace and outdoor projection screen, a conservation studio, a museum cafe, and an event atrium. The museum is home to two new signature galleries: the Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, which boasts one of the most significant collections of African American Art in the United States, and the Andre Leon Talley Gallery, which celebrates style and design in its myriad forms.

SCAD Museum of Art also features breakthrough technology, highlighted by a state-of-the-art interactive orientation center in the museum’s entry hall. Designed by Pentagram exclusively for the museum, this 10-foot-long touch pad delivers information and images of the facility, exhibitions, artists and museum events.

When the Mint Museum opens its major retrospective of work by noted collage artist Romare Bearden in September, Raleigh and Thelmetia Bynum plan to be among the opening night visitors. But they might feel more at home among these masterpieces than most viewers. Not only do the Bynums have their own collection of works by great African-American artists in their home in the Davis Lake community, but their collection includes an original Bearden. They’ve loaned that work to the Mint for the show.

The Bynums’ watercolor will be displayed with approximately 100 other works by Bearden. “Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections” runs Sept. 2-Jan. 8 and celebrates the centennial of Bearden’s birth in Mecklenburg County in 1911. Works will be drawn from the Mint’s extensive collection as well as from many museums and private collections such as the Bynums’.

The title and date of the Bynums’ work, “Back Home” (1978), says a lot about the Mint exhibit and its focus on Bearden’s exploration of his Southern roots.

Bearden lived here for the first four years of his life, though the family eventually settled in New York, and the artist had an urban upbringing. Early works drew on those childhood memories. But in the 1970s, when he made a return visit to the Charlotte area and saw how much of his childhood neighborhood near Uptown had been demolished, he began to use his collages and paintings to chronicle that disappearing way of life. His wanted to celebrate the rituals of daily Southern life for African-Americans in the mid-20th century, including baptisms, blues music, fish fries, gardening and farming.

“Back Home” shows a man playing a guitar outside a red brick house. A woman leans out a window to listen, while another woman and child outside look on. The colors in this painting – bright blues and reds and greens – are characteristic of this phase of Bearden’s work.

Visitors to the Mint exhibit also will see other Mecklenburg-inspired collages from this period, including “Of the Blues: Carolina Shout” (1974), in which members of a congregation throw up their arms to celebrate a baptism, creating striking silhouettes against a magenta sky. In “Sunset Limited (Mecklenburg County)” (1978), figures of a man and a woman holding a child are set against rich blues and greens of a field of grass.

The Bynums met Bearden during one of his visits back to Charlotte for a reception. “I was impressed with his sincerity and simplicity,” Raleigh Bynum says. “He talked about the areas where he grew up, but we were not familiar with those areas since they were not here anymore.”

However, the Bynums did not start collecting art until later, after a grown son who loved art gave his father a print for a gift. Now the Bynums’ collection fills the walls of their living room and dining room and continues throughout their home. The collection includes prints and paintings by Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Jonathan Green and Sam Gilliam, to name a few.

They have a large enough collection, Raleigh Bynum says, that they can rotate what’s on their walls. But when their original Bearden watercolor is returned to their living room, it will stay in its place near the Bynums’ five other Bearden prints.

“We like to keep our artwork arranged by artist,” says Raleigh Bynum. “And we don’t buy them unless we really like them. Because as you can see, we keep them on display.”

“When I’m cleaning the house or going through the day, I stop and sit and enjoy them,” Thelmetia Bynum says.

Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections” opens Sept. 2 with a Bearden birthday celebration, 6-11 p.m. at the Mint Uptown, including gallery tours, live entertainment, hands-on collage activities and a cash bar. Lectures, tours, art classes and other related activities are planned through the show’s closing date, Jan. 8. Details: www.mintmuseum.org For a full list of Charlotte Celebrates Bearden events, visit

On August 28, 1963, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington. On Sunday August 28, 2011, exactly 48 years later, community members gathered in Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park at 4055 Nicollet Avenue South to celebrate the MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C., and for the rededication of the King Park and a sculpture created in King’s honor.

The three-hour event began at 2 pm and included the re-dedication of “Freedom Form #2,” a sculpture donated by New York artist Daniel LaRue Johnson that was originally dedicated to honor Dr. King in the park in 1970.

According to Charles E. Mays, a retired social worker who also worked for the national NAACP office as the youth regional director at the time of the first dedication, the artwork received its name because of the two interlocking wings representing flight and freedom, as expressed by the artist.

Mays told MSR that on August 25 the artwork was returned to its original location on the 40th and Nicollet Avenue side of the park. This is, according to Mays, a better spot for all to see the piece. He remembers never hearing a good reason for moving the artwork in the first place.

The weather was a non-issue for the 150-plus people that attended the celebration in the park. Meanwhile, the MLK Memorial celebration in Washington, D.C. was cancelled due to Hurricane Irene. The MLK Memorial dedication will happen this coming fall.

The Minnesota program included the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy Committee, public officials, various speakers, musical entertainment, storytellers, spoken word and refreshments.

After a controversy that surrounded an attempt by some people to add a dog park to King Park, community members and leaders had concerns about the lack of vision for King Park and the Freedom Form #2 sculpture dedicated in his honor, which was moved from its original location. To address this issue, the park board decided to appoint former park superintendent and commissioner Mary Merrill Anderson to facilitate an advisory task force to make recommendations to the park board.

MSR spoke with Mary Merrill Anderson about the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Advisory Task force and their proposal to the Minneapolis Park Board. Anderson pulled together the committee, which held meetings for over a year. According to Anderson, in the last three months, they planned this program to coincide with the national recognition and dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. statute on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

“It’s unfortunate that [the D.C. memorial] program was cancelled because of the hurricane, but we said that we would still carry on the spirit here locally,” said Anderson. “We wanted to rededicate the sculpture, which was languishing from neglect for over 40 years in this park. We brought it back to its place of prominence, and we are going to restore it. Then we are going to make this park over again, in the image of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

In May 2011, the park board unanimously approved Phase 1 of the task force recommendations that allotted funds for the restoration and relocation of the Freedom Form #2 sculpture to its original site and the creation of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Council to raise $1.6 million for Phase 2 recommendations. The Phase 2 plans include an outdoor amphitheater, improved signage, peace gardens and historical interpretive markers.

The park was originally Nicollet Field, but in 1968 changed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Park to honor the civil rights leader, following his assassination earlier that year. Based on recommendations by the advisory task force, the name of the park is now Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park, ensuring the legacy of Dr. King. The only difference is that now the titles of “Reverend” and “Doctor” are included. It was just as important to the original advocates as it is to the current King committee to have Dr. King’s full title on everything.

In addition, the King Committee plans to create a plaque in front of the sculpture to give a description of the work and information about Daniel LaRue Johnson, the creator.

Susan Roberts of Obsidian Arts in Minneapolis addressed the crowd and offered a historical background about Minnesota’s place in civil rights history and the importance of the artwork: “In 1968, Minneapolis, Minnesota really appeared to be a beacon of hope for the nation. Minneapolis was one of the first places to have a public space dedicated to the memory of Dr. King. In addition to that, in 1948, Hubert Humphrey was the first to introduced civil rights legislation.

Daniel LaRue Johnson is a nationally noted sculptor. At the time he dedicated this sculpture in 1970, it was the largest Corten steel sculpture in the world.”

Roberts concluded by stating that this particular artwork is important and is probably one the few public art pieces in our city that honors an African American and was created by an African American.

The event concluded with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee talking a walk over to the sculpture together for the rededication, while singing “We Shall Overcome.” The ribbon cutting began and the program ended, but it symbolized a new beginning for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, the advisory committee and the entire community.

More information on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park is available on the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board website at www.minneapolisparks.org.

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The “Collard Greens” Circuit: An Alternative Model for the Distribution and Exhibition of African-American Independent Cinema

All too often in the African-American community our conformist tendencies and moral conservatism leads us to a moribund complacency that is just as dangerous for our community as a whole as it is for our culture and the art it produces. It is a complacency born from not necessarily a traditional right-wing conservative perspective, but a religiously centered, middle class aspiring perspective that forces some of us to look at social and cultural problems, not from their systemic causes and functions, but instead as a moral judgment against an individual.

I will use two examples from the past to shed light on our current state of affairs and the dim future it foretells.

In the 1980’s the rise of the crack cocaine epidemic was for so long thought of as an individual’s weakness by some within our communities, which in turn instilled a complacency that blinded some of us from the various life-threatening problems a collective of individuals weakened with substance abuse issues would cause us within a decade’s time. The same could be said of the HIV epidemic during the late 80’s and 90’s, when our moral conservatism and homophobia fed into the perception of AIDS as a ‘gay man’s disease’ and therefore an individual’s weakness. The complacency born from these perceptions encouraged a lack of collective political effort and an unwillingness to help others that blinded us from how the epidemic would profoundly impact our community throughout the 80’s and 90’s and even today.

Now moving from community to culture, today it is well known that only two or three films made by black filmmakers are attaining mainstream theatrical releases each year since the early 2000’s. Once again our conformist tendencies and conservatism is making us complacent and blinding us to the systemic causes and economic functions of the paucity of black films being released theatrically. It is a complacency that has many of us blaming the individual filmmakers for their perceived weakness in not securing a lucrative Hollywood deal as the problem. In other words it’s not Hollywood’s fault, Hollywood exists to make money, it’s the black filmmaker’s fault for not providing more marketable (read: white friendly) material. Even our comedies are failing to make substantial profits as the recent underperformances of FIRST SUNDAY, LOTTERY TICKET and WHO’S YOUR CADDY revealed.

Yet, even though there are many, many African-American films produced each year only two or three of these films gain a mainstream theatrical release. If we count a Tyler Perry film as one of those three, then actually there are only two African-American films, usually with a high profile African-American star attached, that are given a mainstream theatrical release. But there are two additional caveats here also: 1) Neither of the two remaining African-American films can be considered ‘independent’ because they are either bankrolled by a well-known or well connected producer (e.g. John Singleton and the film HUSTLE & FLOW, Tyler Perry andOprah Winfrey’s involvement with PRECIOUS); or 2) not directed or written by an African-American (e.g. BIG MOMMAS: Like Father, Like Son which was directed by John Whitesell). So what do these, for lack of a better word, two or three ‘bogus’ African-American films released to mainstream theaters every year tell us?

In times of great cultural crisis, like today, we as African-Americans become complacent because the ‘white controlled’ system offers us one or two symbols of African-American success in a particular art-form or medium that, in turn, distracts us from the hundreds or thousands of African-Americans who languish in poverty and obscurity as they zealously pursue their ambitions in that particular art-form or medium. A discomforting and stereotypical analogy is that: many African-Americans play basketball and aspire to be professionals, but only a handful get into the NBA to make millions. One of the great differences here is that we get to see those handful of black basketball players on our television screens, whereas so many, many African-American filmmakers works are seldom seen on television nor on the big screen. Today, the obvious success of Tyler Perry and even Oprah Winfrey distracts us from our entrenched powerlessness to simultaneously produce and distribute an African-American independent film into mainstream theaters.

It is under these conditions that we are forced to realize that African-American cinema and ‘white’ American cinema are segregated and unequal in regards to the funding, distribution and exhibition of their respective films. As I stated in my book, SLAVE CINEMA: The Crisis of the African-American in film:

”More money may increase the quantity of films whites produce, but more money also allows white filmmakers a wider margin of error when judging the box office appeal of a film against the artistic purpose and integrity of a film. This wider margin of error encourages certain white filmmakers to experiment with style, dialogue, the presentation of action, editing, setting as well as allowing these white filmmakers to take chances on subject matter and its overall narrative presentation. Yet when studios and independent producers approach African-American films they provide little margin for error by way of smaller budgets, shorter development and production schedules that do not afford African-American filmmakers the same luxuries of artistic purpose, integrity and experimentation as whites.” (pg. 16)

Couple this problem with the fact that only two to three ‘bogus’ African-American films are released into mainstream theatrical theaters and you have a segregated cinema that discourages the ambitions of African-Americans while sustaining the status quo of white cultural superiority in the art and business of film.

What is needed is a renewed sense of collective urgency, cooperation and strategic change in how we fund, market and distribute African-American independent cinema. We can no longer depend on the illusion of a big Hollywood distribution deal as the model to sustain African-American cinema commercial or independent. Countless commercial African-American filmmakers have had their careers halted or destroyed by the Hollywood contract which keeps their scripts in “turnaround” (industry jargon for,” not at this time”) or have their films poorly marketed and distributed as a means of controlling their talent and forcing them to “pull the plough” for an industry that makes the most of its profits from multi-million dollar blockbuster films that through a variety of seductive ways sustain the illusion white cultural superiority in the cinema. Yet it is a white controlled entertainment industry that sustains its artistic prestige from smaller films that take years and years to turn a profit which is a privilege deliberately withheld from African-American filmmakers and their works.

Under these pernicious circumstances we can no longer afford to blame the African-American filmmaker for not making a more marketable product since the product that Hollywood does not want to market are African-American films that challenge the racial representations that have always contributed handsomely to its bottom line. We have to realize that all of the African-American films which we are not seeing are a direct consequence of the “chosen few” that are being placed in front of us to block our view. In short, it is not the weakness of the individual filmmaker that is keeping him or her in poverty and obscurity, but instead the strength of the system which is being fed by our conformist tendencies and conservatism which translates as a lack of a sense of urgency when it comes to African-American cinema. Like the tragically absurd figure in Franz Kafka’s vignette about a deluded man who waits all of his life in front of a door he was told he could not enter, only to find out at the point of his death from old age that this door was, “for you and only you,” too many African-American filmmakers are waiting for a chance that cannot be given to us: it must be taken. (1)

The first and foremost effective means with which we have to combat this problem are African-American film festivals. With several important changes to the submission processes, the addition of multi-tiered exhibition categories and a co-operative ethos and mandate several African-American film festivals could collectively function like the “chitlin’ circuit” did for African-American playwrights and performers who were not allowed into all white establishments during and after segregation.(2)

In effect, these African-American film festivals could form what we might call, ”a Collard Greens circuit,” where challenging, artistically advanced and stimulating films could tour from city to city under a particular festival’s brand name. Profits from these tours could be used to create prize money for award winning films to help fund African-American filmmakers future works, as well as, create a non-profit fund to provide grant money for developing African-American filmmakers. Funding that would give these filmmakers a wider margin of error concerning short term profits vis-à-vis long term cultural legacy in the creation and development of challenging and innovative films. These grants could potentially ‘level the playing field’ and de-segregate the relationship between African-American cinema and white cinema in terms of an African-American filmmaker’s ability to develop challenging, innovative and groundbreaking works.

One of the foreseeable problems with the development of,” a Collard Greens circuit,” for African-American independent film is found in making sure that the films are marketed and exhibited to their target audience. For example, in 2009 Barry Jenkins’s film, MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY, was given a limited “art-house” release across the country, but when it played in my hometown of Detroit, it was shown at the Detroit Film Theater. On paper, the Detroit Film Theater is a well respected film institution with a more than 35 year tradition of showing the best films from around the world. In reality, the Detroit Film Theater rarely reaches out to African-American film audiences, usually showing only one obligatory African-American themed film during Black History month. While as an adjunct of the Detroit Institute of the Arts, it serves mostly white privileged suburbanites and college students and faculty. The “art-house” release pattern continues the segregation between white art films and African-American independent films because the art film theater caters to white audiences for the majority of its yearly programmed schedule. Therefore, the African-American independent film that receives an art house release does not effectively reach most African-American filmgoers.

The second foreseeable problem is whether or not large African-American film festivals like, theHollywood Black Film Festival (HBFF) or the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) and any other film festivals whose agenda is to promote black film can work together to both coordinate the tours and distribute a percentage of the profits into prize money and grants for developing filmmakers. It’s not that these festivals don’t already have systems in place for prize money and development funds, but the fact that separately these festivals have a less than profound effect in getting African-American films into mainstream theaters and accumulating funds that could be distributed as development and production grants to filmmakers. But given the circumstances I have already described concerning a segregated cinema between white films and black films, if these disparate festivals could work together they could form a mighty weapon that would aid in the desegregation of American cinema.

A third but not less important foreseeable problem with the development of “a Collard Greens circuit” for African-American independent cinema can be found in our conformist tendencies that are manifested in the notion of filmmaking as a “get rich quick” means of vertical class mobility. We have been seduced by a variety of conduits into believing that the business of film is the sole purpose for getting involved in the art of film; that when we make a film and concern ourselves solely with ability of the project to make money we lower our ideals to what we have convinced ourselves is a common denominator and in so doing we make mindless comedies or create stereotypical characters and circumstances to which we believe all black audiences can relate. We conform to very notions we wanted to transcend when we think of filmmaking solely as a means of getting rich, instead of as a means of artistic expression.

Yet, to end this dream on a ray of hope, “a Collard Greens circuit” if developed and sustained could allow the most innovative, challenging and artistically advanced African-American independent cinema to finally reach its targeted audience. These films, if shown in a variety of cites North, South, East and West could renew our spirit and faith in cinema as the most important art-form of African-American artistic expression. The “Collard Greens circuit” could resurrect films long thought lost or unmarketable like R.W. Fassbinder’s WHITY (1970),GANJA & HESS (1973) or Tanya Hamilton’s NIGHT CATCHES US (2010) saving these films from obscurity and giving them a chance to make a deep impression with African-American audiences as a means to contradict the racial representations of typical Hollywood product. The “Collard Greens circuit” could provide an alternative model for the distribution and exhibition of African-American independent film that could finally let us create a doorway for ourselves rather than wait for someone to open the door for us and let a ‘chosen few’ through.

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The lifelong passion of a man has found a new home in Tuscaloosa. The Paul R. Jones Gallery of Art, located at 2308 Sixth St., is currently housing a 1,700-piece collection of American art estimated at over $4.8 million.

The collection, donated to the University of Alabama in 2008 by Alabama native Paul R. Jones, is one of the largest collections of African-American art in the world.

Paul R. Jones started this collection because he felt that African-American artists were being overlooked and were not being judged upon based solely on artistic merit.

Dr. Lucy Curzon, faculty advisor of the student exhibition and assistant professor in the department of art and art history, said the location of the building carries as much significance as the art itself.

that art was not just for the select few; he wanted it to be accessible to anyone to view. By making it accessible to everyone, we can make what Mr. Jones wanted to come true.”

“With the location of the Harrison Galleries and the Children’s Hands On Museum, the administration wanted to create an art epicenter,” Curzon said. “Paul Jones believed

The new Jones Gallery will have different exhibitions running all year long. The inaugural exhibition entitled Icon will be open until Sept.16 and has been curated by graduate students in studio art and art history from the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The exhibit will showcase works by famous artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, Emma Amos and Clarissa Sigh, among others.

“This exhibit features works done by artists in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s,” Dr. Curazon said. “People can channel through artists from that time. Works of art are markers of society.”

The opening reception was held Aug. 13, 2011.

“There were several hundred people, including dignitaries from UA, Tuscaloosa and Paul R. Jones’ great niece,” Curzon said.

Caleb Sexton, a UA student majoring in graphic design who is currently working under Dr. Curzon as a gallery assistant, points out the significance of the inaugural exhibit. He believes that the Icon exhibit showcases those ‘Iconoclasts, or history book artists.’

“Art and design are means of communication to publicize events – it’s what makes society, society,” Sexton said.

The exhibit is open to the public for free, and the gallery will be participating in Art Night on the first Thursday of each month, when they will stay open late.

In accordance to the mission of Paul R. Jones, teaching is the main goal of the gallery, and Sexton is one student who is taking advantage of the experience he is gaining through working at the gallery. He has already started his own graphic design business, Rising Phoenix Designs.

“It helps me gain involvement in a real world setting, because art is such a big part of the community,” Sexton said.

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Entertainment will feature: Anthony David, Art Sherrod, Trina Broussard, Noel Gourdin, Marcus Johnson and April Sampe.

Participants interested in the Idol Competition must complete the application and submit an entry fee of $20 by September 9, 2011.

There will also be Free Health & Wellness Screening, Historical Exhibits, Free Financial Workshops, Children’s Champion Zone, Line Dancing, Arts & Crafts, Food Vendors, Free Historical Bus Tour, Stepping, Zumba Classes, Fashion Show, Milford Mill High School Concert Chorale, Gospel Music, Informational Booths and more.

Proceeds will benefit the Baltimore County African American Cultural Festival’s Scholarship Fund.

Free Parking

For more information festival and Idol contest, visit www.aaculturalfestival.com or call 410 645-0765.

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In Philadelphia, there is no such memorial, to King or any other black leader, in Center City.

No African Americans have been favored with a place in the shadow of City Hall, which is nearly ringed by immense statuary of commercial, legal, and manufacturing moguls; generals from the Union Army; and a U.S. president.

In fact, until the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors was moved to the Parkway in 1994 from its hideaway in Fairmount Park, there was no prominent public art in Center City alluding to black life at all. Emancipation Proclamation Fountain by Gerd Utescher, installed in 1965, sits deep in a stairwell leading to the 15th Street SEPTA concourse, obscured by overgrown foliage and virtually invisible to passersby – as if to prove the point.

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Now, 76 years later, “Porgy & Bess” is being re-imagined at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. It’s in previews this week and is bound for Broadway. But changing this classic opera comes with some pretty hefty baggage.

Messing with an iconic work will always get people riled up, and the creative team behind the new “Porgy & Bess” understood that from the get go.

It’s a classic! What are you going to do? Oh no, it’s famous, and old!

That’s what a lot of people said to Suzan-Lori Parks, the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama. Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus hired Parks to help transform “Porgy & Bess” the opera into a piece of musical theater.

Just last week musical theater legend Stephen Sondheim wrote a blistering letter to the New York Times attacking Paulus and Parks for dishonoring the opera’s original creators. But Parks has a gentle reminder for the purists.

“We haven’t touched the opera, actually,” she said. “You know on your computer you push ‘duplicate?’ We’re making another show. We’re not saying this will replace the original brilliant opera called ‘Porgy & Bess.’

And, Parks added, “the Gershwins asked us to.”

Both the Gershwin and Heyward estates, actually. The trustees enlisted Paulus first.

“Every time in rehearsal, you know, when a music stand falls down or a book falls off or something crashes we’re always like, ‘There’s Gershwin!’ ” Paulus said with a laugh.

Paulus is also the artistic director at the A.R.T. in Cambridge.

“Actually, I think what makes it such a powerful classic is that you do feel like you’re in dialogue with not only George Gershwin, but Ira Gershwin and DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and what they gave us 76 years ago,” Paulus said. “That we are still working on it and still mining it beat by beat, word for word, note for note.”

This past May Paulus lead the actors in workshops in New York before moving on to full rehearsals at the A.R.T. last month. But the brainstorming began more than a year ago, after Paulus contacted Suzan-Lori Parks and musical adapter Diedre Murray to take on the musical’s book and score.

Parks and Murray holed themselves up in windowless rooms, listening to recordings and pouring over the libretto, so they could “modernize without disturbing,” as Murray put it. She, like countless musicians and music lovers, reveres George Gershwin’s music.

“When you hear Gershwin you hear America,” Murray, a composer and cellist, said. “As an adapter, you kind of have to be able to try to think like that person.”

Murray likes to think Gershwin would give her his blessing if he was still alive. Sadly, he died only two years after “Porgy & Bess” premiered in 1935 at Boston’s Colonial Theatre.

As the story goes, Gerswhin and his collaborators paced through Boston Common arguing over what cuts to make to their four-hour opera.

Murray and Park feel a great sense of responsibility to the original creative team, but in looking at the text everyone saw problems with the narrative — which, of course, landed in the playwright’s lap.

“You just look at it and go, ‘Here are some words that are working to tell a story — how can they more effectively tell that story?’ ” Parks said.

In the tweaked “Porgy & Bess,” the story still unfolds in a southern fishing community called Catfish Row. It’s still set in the 1920s. Bess is still a beautiful drug-addict torn between her brutish boyfriend Crown and her growing love for the charming, disabled beggar, Porgy. But Parks had big questions about what makes the characters tick.

For instance, the original opera never explains why Porgy is disabled, so Parks turned to the source.

“Go to the original novel, DuBose Hayward’s novel, and then you realize he’s crippled from birth. ‘I’m crippled from birth, God made me to be lonely,’ ” Parks said, quoting a passage. “That’s in the show. What does that mean to marry those two things together?”

It deepens our understanding of why the love affair between Porgy and Bess is so transformative and dramatic for Porgy, Parks believes. She puts herself in his shoes to drive the point home.

Imagine being Porgy, “and into my life comes the most beautiful, cool, sexiest, most awesome chick, and I fall in love with her,” Park said. And that’s drama.

Now, Bess might be cool and sexy, but she’s also an extremely flawed character. Parks dug further into her backstory as well. Actress Audra McDonald said it really helped her connect to Bess’ plight.

“Any time you get more back story on a character, are you kidding? It just grounds your character’s reality,” McDonald said.

The team made countless changes to make the characters and plot more accessible, and more believable, too. They also made a particularly controversial decision to eliminate one of the opera’s key plot devices — Porgy’s goat cart. In this show, he gets around town using a cane. Parks also wanted to address a longtime criticism of the opera, involving the song “I Got Plenty of Nothing.”

“That’s the song that folks will go, ‘Oh man that’s a racist song,’ you know, it’s basically the happy darkie with the empty pockets song,” Parks said.

That didn’t bother Parks as much as her feeling that the song didn’t work dramatically. So she added a few words of dialogue to set it up.

“This is why words are cool,” Parks said. In her play, Porgy comes out of the house and other characters ask what he has been up to. Porgy tries to play it cool.

“Now he’s just been in the house with Bess,” Parks said. “If any of you have ever been in a new romance you know what that’s like. And they all start laughing, a bunch of guys on stage, and he starts singing, ‘I got plenty of nothing…’ ”

So, Park said, “it’s a song about I have love in my life now.”

Broadway performer Norm Lewis plays Porgy. He and the rest of the cast are proud to be part of an updated version of this famous, sometimes infamous opera. While it’s been called a racist piece — co-written by a Jewish New Yorker who some believe knew very little about real life in a southern, black neighborhood — they say it’s critical to remember how well-researched and radical “Porgy & Bess” was for it’s time.

Author DuBose Heyward was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He and his wife Dorothy wrote a play based on his 1925 novel, which they then adapted into an opera with the Gershwins. From the beginning the creative team stipulated it would always be performed by an all-black cast. And, in the ’40s, singer Todd Duncan refused to take the stage as Porgy at the segregated National Theatre in Washington, D.C., unless all seats were open to all people.

Baritone Phillip Boykin plays Crown in the new musical and believes it will attract more diverse audiences to the A.R.T. and to Broadway. Even though he’s sung the villainous role in opera productions all over the world, he says this version has taught him a thing or two.

“I’ve been doing ‘Porgy & Bess’ since like 1995 or ’96, and I never knew why Porgy was crippled,” Boykin said. “This show answers that. I never knew if Crown really loved Bess or not and this show answers that. It answers a lot of the questions that I’ve had forever.”

That, of course, is music to the creative team’s ears — and likely to the trustees for the Gershwin and Heyward estates. A group of them traveled to Cambridge this week for the final dress rehearsal and first performance.

I’ve been told they might very well request changes to the show. The estates stand to earn royalties from what’s now called, “The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess.” But more important to the trustees, and the creative team, is to have this 20th-century love story reach 21st-century audiences who don’t usually go to the opera house.

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Emilio Sosa is making it work.

The 45-year-old “Project Runway”-finalist landed the plum role of costumer for “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” which opened last night at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime production,” Sosa said of the revival opera that will head to Broadway after its fall run. A.R.T.’s controversial production, an African-American love story set in 1920s South Carolina, gave Sosa some 20 characters to dress, from Porgy, a disabled beggar (played by Norm Lewis), to a slippery drug dealer named Sporting Life (David Alan Grier).

“I’m not designing costumes for a certain period as much as I’m designing clothing for people who happen to be in the (1920s),” Sosa said.

Sosa’s vision of authenticity plays out in the simple floral dresses, trimmed in lace, the ladies’ wear and the distressed work pants in which Lewis limps across the stage.

“A happy actor gives a better performance,” said Sosa, who makes allowances for the actors’ personal preferences when creating their wardrobes.

Earlier this week, Sosa was making final adjustments in the A.R.T. costume shop, where he has practically lived for the last two weeks. He matched jewelry to dresses for a picnic scene, and debated with the shop director about whether Grier should wear a bow tie.

Sosa, who placed second on “Runway’s” season seven, has always embraced his “fashion angel,” but said his heart has been with theater since he was a student at Pratt Institute, an arts college in New York, in the 1980s.

“I started as a shopper, buying threads and fabrics, then I started to swatch,” said Sosa, whose first gig was at the now-closed Grace Costumes in Manhattan.

His 25 years of experience includes work with Alvin Ailey, New York City Opera and Diane Paulus, who directs this production of “Porgy and Bess.”

“We did (rock opera) ‘Turandot: The Rumble for the Ring’ and ‘The Capeman’ with Paul Simon,” Sosa said. “Getting theater notes from Paul Simon — it’s not something I even dreamed about.”

This “Porgy and Bess” is also otherworldly for Sosa, who said the best compliment he hopes to get is that the costumes disappear in the telling.

“It’s a universal story about love, finding your voice and leaving your surroundings to find a better life,” he said. “I hope the world embraces it.”

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All Mississippi residents with proper identification will be admitted free to the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art on Labor Day, Sept. 5.

Come and visit Phase I of the Frank Gehry-designed campus and view the artistic works of mixed media artist and Mississippi native William Dunlap, photographer Herman Leonard and Mississippi potter Brian Nettles. And, of course the permanent exhibitions of master potter George Ohr and emancipated slave Pleasant Reed.

Visit the Ohr-O’Keefe and enjoy all that makes the museum unique: the artists, the architecture, the history and the landscape. In a fitting tribute to George Ohr, architect Frank Gehry has designed an award-winning campus of bold, intriguing, self-sufficient structures that together create a single unified vision connected by the expansive brick plaza and majestic Live oaks.

The museum café is open for lunch and Starbucks Coffee is available all day. The museum store specializes in the fine art and craft of Mississippi artists.

Current exhibits

“Above All, Enjoy the Music: Jazz Photography by Herman Leonard,” through Nov. 26 in the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino Gallery/ Gallery of African American Art.

“Above All, Enjoy the Music” features 40 evocative masterworks by Herman Leonard, whose black and white photographs include jazz icons such as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. Herman Leonard (1923-2010) was both a great photographer as well as a jazz aficionado, who created a dazzling visual collection of the world he loved. The exhibition honors jazz as an American art form, with roots that began in the African American community of New Orleans in the 1890s and exploded on the New York club scene in the 1940s. Funded in part by the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

“William Dunlap: Look At It … Think About It,” through Dec. 3 in the IP Casino Resort Spa Exhibitions Gallery.

The nationally recognized work of Mississippi native son William Dunlap reminds us of the importance of our own cultural history though use of rich artifacts. His large landscape paintings combined with assemblages of familiar found objects invite viewers to examine their own cultural roots and consider what has been lost in today’s world. Look At It … Think About It symbolically represents life experiences and exploration of historical tradition. Dunlap’s use of recurrent characters suggests the intricate strata of history and its repetition of themes. The exhibit is funded be IP Casino Resort Spa and R&B Feder Charitable Foundation for the Beaux-Arts.

“Brian Nettles: Design in Three Dimensions,” through Nov. 26 in the Mississippi Sound Welcome Center.

The ceramic work of Mississippi artist Brian Nettles is influenced by nature’s shapes, forms, textures and rich organic colors found on his 28 acre studio site in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Located along the banks of the winding Wolf River, the nearby bayous, creeks and cypress swamps provide inspiration.

Regular museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. The museum is located at 386 Beach Blvd. in Biloxi.

For more information, visit www.georgeohr.org or call (228) 374-5547.

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The historic stone art of Tengenenge, a region located in northern Zimbabwe, may be barely 40 years old but it is breaching high-end ethnic boutique art and home accessories bastions across the world.

A collection of 50 abstract Zimbabwean sculptures crafted in serpentine, high-density hard smooth black stone, spring stone and opal is in India after more than two decades to be sold as collectibles, drawing room, corporate and institutional art.

A collection of 50 abstract Zimbabwean sculptures crafted in serpentine, high-density hard smooth black stone, spring stone and opal is in India after more than two decades to be sold as collectibles, drawing room, corporate and institutional art.

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