A New Take on “Primitivism”? Man Ray, African Art, and The Modernist Lens

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By Holly Hunt


Of all the images I encountered in Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens, which completed its North American tour this winter with a stay at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology (the catalog also won the International Tribal Book Award) the one that most caught my imagination was a photograph by British Surrealist Roland Penrose. It shows fellow Surrealists Paul Eluard and E. L. T. Mesens posed in conversation, gesticulating vigorously, wearing dark suits and carved African masks.

What startles the eye is how completely the two men are transformed. The masks seem no more or less arbitrary a form of self-fashioning than Eluard’s rumpled socks or Mesens’s white pocket square. The picture opens itself up to a range of readings. Do the masks conceal or reveal? Did Penrose intend a Freudian allegory, using African artifacts to reveal the “savages” beneath the suits? Or are we to think of the masks of Athenian tragedy and Japanese Noh, elements of the rituals by which life becomes art?

There are other questions to ask as well. Can this be anything other than two white men reducing the artifacts of a nonwhite culture to the status of props in their cerebral games? In my years as a graduate student, the academic word on artistic primitivism seemed unambiguous. It was straight-up cultural imperialism, an act of appropriation by western artists and intellectuals eager to project their own Hearts of Darkness onto the so-called savages. But this always seemed less than completely satisfactory to me, part of the story but not the whole of it.

Many of the pleasures of Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens lay in its exploration of the many facets of the modernist fascination with African art, from serious engagement to frivolous exoticism and back again. Celebrities of the Harlem renaissance posed with African sculpture in the studio of African-American photographer Carl van Vechten. Haute couture milliner Lilly Daché collected Congolese hats, which inspired some of her own avant-garde designs. At the lowbrow end of the spectrum, a French publication entitled “Une nuit de Singapore”, would-be highbrow erotica full of dusky maidens, used images of African art to illustrate a textbook example of Edward Said-style Orientalism.

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Black Film Fesitval kicks off

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by Katelyn Hackett


Wilmington– The North Carolina Black Film Festival kicked off on Thursday night.

People filed into the Cameron Art Museum for the free reception. In its tenth year the festival showcases dozens of short and feature-length narratives, documentaries and animation.

Folks travel from all over the nation to attend.

“The North Carolina Black Film Festival formerly known Cine Noir Festival of Black Film gives African American filmmakers the opportunity to showcase their work as producers and directors also the opportunity for our actors to get exposure for those that participate in the films”. Said Charlon Turner of the Black Film Festival.

Attendees got to enjoy clips from the independent films that showcase the African American community’s impact on film.

Other festival events will take place at the Hannah Block USO and Screen Gem Studios.


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Brooklyn Museum Presents THE BROOKLYN ARTISTS BALL

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The Brooklyn Museum will be partnering with Brooklyn artists to celebrate the Brooklyn Artists Ball, on Wednesday evening, April 27, 2011. This new twist on the Museum’s longstanding annual gala will celebrate the creativity and considerable influence of Brooklyn artists. “It is incredibly exciting for the Museum to enlarge in yet another way its already major engagement with the community of artists living and working in Brooklyn. The new direction of the Ball signifies the Museum’s enormous commitment to those artists, past and present, who are a cornerstone of the institution,” said the Museum’s Director, Arnold Lehman.
Museum Trustee and arts patron Stephanie Ingrassia will chair the event with Sarah Jessica Parker acting as Honorary Co-Chair. The Museum will honor Brooklyn-based artists Fred Tomaselli, Lorna Simpson, and FrEd Wilson, as well as retiring Brooklyn Museum Chair, Norman M. Feinberg. Fred Tomaselli is best known for his highly detailed paintings suspended in clear epoxy resin, which he has described as windows into a hallucinatory universe. Tomaselli has exhibited at the world’s foremost galleries and institutions, including in a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 2010. Ed Wilson
is an installation artist and a political activist who was chosen as the United States representative for the Venice Biennale in 2003. Wilson has had solo exhibitions around the world, including at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; and The Studio Museum in Harlem. He is also included in the Brooklyn Museum’s Permanent Collection. Lorna Simpson’s work portrays images of black women combined with text to express contemporary society’s relationship with race, ethnicity, and sex. Simpson was the first African American woman to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale, had a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2007, and is the subject of an exhibition currently at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
The Brooklyn Artist’s Ball will commence at 6 p.m. with a special VIP cocktail reception hosted by Honorary Co-Chair Sarah Jessica Parker in the Great Hall, amid a space-altering, site-specific architectural installation created by Situ Studio, a Brooklyn-based creative practice specializing in design and fabrication. The installation, reOrder: An Architectural Environment reimagines the classically ordered space, transforming the scale of the hall with stretched fabric canopies and integrated furnishings that swell, expand, and augment the profile of the existing monumental columns. Also exhibited in the Great Hall will be a pulsating animated video environment by Brooklyn-based video artist and designer Sean Capone, whose dynamic and mesmerizing large-scale video projections have received critical acclaim for their breathtaking effect.
Following the cocktail reception a sumptuous seated dinner will take place in the Museum’s magnificent Beaux-Art Court. Table environments uniquely designed by Brooklyn-based artists including Aleksander Duravcevic, Valerie Hegarty, Ryan Humphrey, Bo Joseph, Jason Miller, Angel Otero, Duke Riley, Heather Rowe, Shinique Smith, Brian Tolle, Vadis Turner, Sara VanDerBeek and Anya Kielar, and Dustin Yellin will provide guests with an exceptional multi-sensory dining experience.
Tickets to the Brooklyn Artists Ball are available from $500 to $1,500 and tables range from $5,000 to $50,000. Tickets may be purchased online at www.brooklynmuseum.org. For further information on the event or ticket options please call (718) 501-6423 or e-mail emilie.schlegel@brooklynmuseum.org. Proceeds from the Brooklyn Artists Ball will support the Museum’s exhibition, education, and outreach programs.

Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria Tours World Museums

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By: Gabriella Osamor



Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria presents a major part of the extraordinary corpus of ancient Ife art in terra-cotta, stone, and metal, dating from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries.
Artists at Ife, the ancient city-state of the Yoruba people of West Africa (located in present-day southwestern Nigeria), created sculpture that ranks among the most aesthetically striking and technically sophisticated in the world.
Dynasty and Divinity reveals the extraordinarily creative range of Ife art through a diversity of objects that includes handsome idealised portrait heads, exquisite miniatures, expressive caricatures of old age, lively animals, and sculptures showing the impressive regalia worn by Ife’s kings and queens.
Together, these illuminate one of the world’s greatest art centers and demonstrate the technological sophistication of Ife artists, as well as the rich aesthetic language they developed in order to convey ideas about worldly and divine power.
The refined sculptures from Ife demonstrate the dignity and self-assurance associated with the idea of dynasty, as well as the results of misfortunes and violence that could befall human beings—both fates shaped by divine as well as human interventions.
Among the many masterpieces from Ife in this book are a group of life-size copper portrait heads, carved stone animals, and the spectacular seated male figure found in the town of Tada, Nigeria, shown dressed in an elaborate textile.
All the objects come from the collection of the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
Henry John Drewal, a noted scholar of Yoruba and African diaspora arts, explores the significance of Ife’s stone, terra-cotta, and metal sculptures in the context of Yoruba history and culture.
Today, the city of Ife is still a spiritual heartland for the 29 million Yoruba people living in Nigeria and countless descendents in the Americas and elsewhere in the world. Drewal explores the purposes for which this art may have been made and its relationship to Yoruba ideas about leadership, divinity, gender, and aesthetics.
In an essay introducing the catalogue of the exhibition, Enid Schildkrout, an anthropologist who has curated major exhibitions on Africa, shows how this first assemblage of the full range of Ife art gives the most complete portrayal of an ancient African city ever presented in a single exhibition.
Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria, accompanies an exhibition, co-organised by the Museum for African Art, New York City, and the Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander, Spain, and in collaboration with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.
Henry John Drewal is Evjue-Bascom Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Adjunct Curator of African Art at the University’s Chazen Museum of Art.
Enid Schildkrout is Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Publications at the Museum for African Art and Curator Emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History.



Staten Island Museum to begin preparing its new home

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Two years from now — roughly — after its $25 million city-funded retrofitting is finished, the 130-year-old Staten Island Museum hopes to welcome guests into a new 18,000-square-foot, green facility with state-of-the-art areas devoted to science, art, and local history.

In one corner, a 20-ft. mastodon charging through an interior wall will recall the days when those behemoths ambled about on what is New Dorp Lane today.

The Staten Island Museum will break ground March 23 on a $25 million renovation/construction project in its long-designated new home in the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden complex.

The conversion/construction will take place in Building A, on the “Front Five” of the cultural center. As soon as construction is safely under way, museum director Elizabeth Egbert will begin raising funds to complete a similar project next door, in Building B.

The first stage of the project in A, a three-story, 170-year-old Greek Revival building, will involve “emptying the building from the cellar to the roof,” Ms. Egbert said. “Essentially, what we’re doing is building a new building inside the old one.” Only the original wrought-iron staircases will be retained.

The new facility will have a closed-loop geothermal system for heating and cooling. Some 32 vertical loops buried 500 feet beneath the surface of the ground will help warm the building in the winter and cool it in the summer.

“For a while in the beginning,” Ms. Egbert said, “people will see nothing but big piles of dirt next to the building. It’s part of the process.”

The project isn’t the first Building A expansion attempt on behalf of the Staten Island Museum. In 1984, the city funded a $2.4 million reconstruction, intending to develop a new home for the museum. But unforeseen construction challenges intervened, absorbing the budget long before the work was finished.

Subsequent museum administrations promoted alternative plans for new homes adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

In separate proposals, two of the world’s pre-eminent architects, I.M. Pei and Peter Eisenman, produced preliminary designs for new Staten Island Museum buildings on the St. George waterfront, but neither developed beyond the drawing board.

The museum (officially the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences) has been linked to Snug Harbor for many years. Both Harbor buildings, A and B, were earmarked as the museum’s future home in the early 1970s.

Two departments of the museum — the archives and a new conservation center — are already established in the Harbor’s Building H, having relocated there in the past few years. The museum opened its first show at the archives and history center, “Portraits of Leadership: African American Entrepreneurs on Staten Island,” last month.

The museum was established in 1881 in St. George by local naturalists. It had a succession of temporary headquarters, including Borough Hall. By 1918, it had its own building at 75 Styuyvesant Pl., St. George. Even then, it was widely acknowledged that the building was too small.

Today, the collections contain well over a million objects. They preserve 500,000, entomological (insect) specimens, 500,000 pieces of ephemera, 40,000 botanical specimens, 400 paintings, 1,200 works on paper, 60,000 photographs, and a 16,000 volume library.

It is world-famous among certain entomologists for its cicada collection, the biggest in North America.

Thornton Township Black History Program Honors Dr. Margaret Burroughs

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by:Margaret Burroughs




Thornton Township paid tribute to the late Dr. Margaret Burroughs, artist, poet, teacher and co-founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History during their annual Black History Month celebration held on Feb. 25. Those whose lives she touched shared their stories. The celebration also included performances by the Najwa African Dance Group, songs by Ugochi and the reading of two of Dr. Burroughs most well-known poems.
Barbara Horton of Dolton called it a wonderful, inspiring program. Although she never met Dr. Burroughs, Horton learned about her while transcribing her tapes as part of her work study program at Chicago State University. “I was surprised to learn about everything she did and was unaware of her artistic talent,” she said. Some of Dr. Burroughs artwork is now part of the township’s permanent collection which she had donated through the years.
Diane Dinkins-Carr, board president of the Southside Community Art Center said Dr. Burroughs was a wonderful mentor. She recalled visiting Margaret’s kitchen with her parents and hearing her great words of wisdom. “She left great footsteps to follow,” she said. Dinkins-Carr grew up at the art center where her father was the educational director. Dr. Burroughs convinced her to join the board of directors. From there she became president in 1998 and continues to serve in that capacity.
Dr. Burroughs was instrumental in starting the art center because she wanted a place for African American artists to exhibit their work. In 1935 a WPA (Works Project Administration) member told her that if she could find a facility they would fund it. The Southside Community Art Center opened in 1935 at 3831 S. Michigan. When the funding ceased Dr. Burroughs held drives to money to purchase the building and the lot which now has landmark status. Dinkins-Carr has vowed to continue Dr. Burroughs dream of bringing art the community and providing a place where emerging African American artists can become established artists.


Dr. Carol Adams, executive director of the DuSable Museum, said Dr. Burroughs lived her life between her two most well-known poems, What Will Your Legacy Be? and What Should I Tell My Children Who Are Black? That was her inspiration for starting the museum which is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Dr. Burroughs often spoke of the needs of the community, stating “None will do it for me,” Adams said. She urged those in attendance to go out in the community and do what needs to be done. She added that Dr. Burroughs legacy also included reaching out to those who were imprisoned giving them hope for the future. “She memorialized her love of people by continuing to share her artwork with the community. She was a global activist, artist, and an institution builder,” Adams said.

Phillip London who served as her personal photographer in a volunteer capacity starting working with Dr. Burroughs in 1978 when he was a student. Several years later she asked him to travel with her around the world. Their trips included visits to South Africa and Cuba. “She was like a mother. She always had time to speak with you. She loved meeting the people and always had something to give them,” he said. London shared some of his photos of Dr. Burroughs travels with the township for display and will donate them to the DuSable Museum. He too, carries on Dr. Burroughs legacy by mentoring young people pursuing a career in photography.
David Lowery, Jr., president of the South Suburban Branch of the NAACP, stressed the importance of continuing Dr. Burroughs dream. “We need to focus on our young people. Our children are perishing because they don’t know who they are and where they come from, “he said. “We must teach them.”
The participants thanked Thornton Township Supervisor Frank Zuccarelli and the Human Relations Commission for presenting the Annual Black History Program and for honoring the achievements of Dr. Margaret Burroughs. She was a longtime friend of the township.



Technology and craft combine at the Milwaukee Art Museum

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By Stanley A. Miller

When technology and art meet, the fusion can make digital wizardry the star of the show or it can simply be a creative means to an end.

A new exhibit featuring craftwork at the Milwaukee Art Museum shows how technology can be harnessed as basic building blocks of creativity. “The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft” shows technology broken down and blended into craft as seamlessly as wood, glass, metal or clay.

“Technology is inherent to the expression of these works, and they might not exist without it,” says Fo Wilson, curator and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “The thing that ties all these together is how they use the ones and zeros.”

For example, Nathalie Miebach’s “Warm Winter” lists “data” as a material used to weave her work of reed and wood. The intricate and chaotic combination of curves and abrupt angles represents research recorded from the environment. It even includes a key listing which materials represent what elements, including water, wind and sand. “Data determined what the piece looks like,” Wilson says. “You can read her work as a piece of science.”

The use of digital technology is just as important but more subtle in “Madam CJ Walker,” a massive array of black plastic hair combs arranged in the image of the African-American businesswoman.

Artist Sonya Clark took an image of the historical business icon, pixilated it using a computer and then used the positive and negative spaces of missing teeth in the combs to build the visage.

The pixilation intensifies as viewers move around the black-and-white plastic tapestry, which is as curious to see up close as it is from far away. The materials and technological technique magnify Clark’s metaphor: Walker made her fortune as a hair care entrepreneur marketing products to African-American women.

“The New Materiality” also has interactive craft creations reacting in the presence of people.

“Anxious” pairs a beautifully built wooden bird cage and elegant cabriole-leg table with small LCDs on each. When people approach, a digital parakeet named “Bird” flies from the cage to a perch embedded in the table.“Sounding” responds to visitors by playing the ambient audio of underwater marine life funneled through a grand, arcing, gramophone-like horn. It’s linked to a steel cabriole-leg table that artists Donald Fortescue and Lawrence LaBianca filled with rocks and submerged in the ocean for months.

Rust and seaweed from its time under the sea are flaking off, and some rests on the museum’s floor. It’s a piece that looks as if it came from an alternate universe or a parallel timeline, fusing the synthetic and organic.

Many other works in “The New Materiality” show artists melding digital technologies into their handiwork in diverse ways. It’s an approach that worries some in the craft arts community, which honors the work of hand over the power of machines.

“The concern is that anything that moves us toward the machine is trying to take away something,” Wilson says. “I am not trying to take anything away from craft. I am just trying to add something.”

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Reading gallery presents awards for student art

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By Ed Terrell

For the past 10 years the Reading School District has been taking part in an art contest sponsored by the African American Coalition of Reading (A.C.O.R.), a gallery in the GoggleWorks in Reading.

For the contest, students needed to represent an African American figure in any media.

Themes could include Afro-Caribbean, historical figures, artists, musicians, sports figures, scientists, and family members.

More than 300 students, from first through 12th grade, submitted art, and 40 received awards.

Reading Mayor Tom McMahon and Reading School Board member Isamac Torres-Figueroa presented the awards in the A.C.O.R. gallery.

Categories were Best of Show, Best of School , Best of Grade and Best Theme.

The award for Best of Show went to Milly Piesencia, a junior at Reading High School.

The award for Best of School went to Alexandra Terrell, also a junior at Reading High School.

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Ford Foundation Gives a Major Contribution of $3 Million to African Art Museum

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by:Elsie McCabe Thompson



NEW YORK, N.Y.- Elsie McCabe Thompson, president, the Museum for African Art, announced that the Museum has received a major contribution of $3 million from the Ford Foundation. The grant supports the final stage of construction of the Museum’s new building, which is located on Fifth Avenue at 110th Street and has been designed by the New York City-based Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP.

In recognition of the Foundation’s generosity, the Museum will name the lobby of the building—which opens in fall 2011—the “Ford Foundation Lobby.” With its contribution, the Foundation joins other generous private donors to the Museum, including David Rockefeller, John Tishman, and the Walt Disney Company, among others, and brings to $76 million the total raised for the $90 million project.

Mrs. McCabe Thompson stated, “The Museum for African Art is thrilled to find in the Ford Foundation a partner that shares its commitment to bringing the full spectrum of Africa’s arts and cultures to diverse audiences in New York City and beyond. We are deeply grateful to the Foundation for this generous and important gift, which provides critical support for completion of our new building. Ford’s vision and generosity will be a compelling example for others.”

Ford Foundation President Luis A. Ubiñas adds, “The Ford Foundation is delighted to support the Museum for African Art in this important and timely project. The Foundation is committed to nurturing art and education initiatives that reflect the cultural richness of our society. The Museum has advanced broad understanding of that richness through its exhibitions, publications, and programs, which have reached millions of people. The Ford Foundation is proud that its name will be among those welcoming visitors to the new Museum for African Art.”

Building Project

The Museum for African Art is internationally recognized as a preeminent source of exhibitions and publications related to traditional and contemporary African art and culture. Since opening to the public in 1984, it has operated from three different locations in New York City: on the Upper East Side (1984–92), in the SoHo district (1992–2002), and in Long Island City, Queens. In 2002, it closed its gallery space in Queens in order to focus on developing plans for its new, larger facility. Today, as it prepares to move into its new quarters—the first that it will own—the Museum is expanding the size and scope of its programs in anticipation of larger and more diverse audiences.

The Museum’s Fifth Avenue home will link the northern end of Manhattan’s “Museum Mile” with Harlem, one of the country’s historic and contemporary centers of African-American culture. Comprising some 75,000 square feet of space, the public areas of the new building will include about 15,000 square feet of gallery space; the Ford Foundation Lobby, which contains 5,000 square feet of informal exhibition space, in addition to ticketing and information services; a 245-seat theater; an education center; a shop; and a restaurant. An outdoor plaza across from the northeast corner of Central Park will provide additional space for public programs.


Florence Museum celebrates artist Johnson’s 110th birthday

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By DWIGHT DANA

FLORENCE N.C. — The trustees of the Florence Museum are holding a 110th birthday party for the late and noted artist William H. Johnson, a Florence native, Saturday at 2 p.m. on the lawn of the museum.

The trustees also will unveil their most recent acquisition at the party, which free and open to the public.

Never heard of William H. Johnson? Take a gander at some of the accomplishments of the 1918 graduate of Wilson High School:

He is featured prominently in every major American art history text.

He is considered one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century.

Florence is the only city in South Carolina that can boast of such an important native artist.

He could paint as beautifully and realistically as Rubens or Rembrandt, but he made a conscientious decision to paint with the simple, direct intensity of folk art in order to best document scenes of daily life of African-Americans.

His use of bright colors and large shapes, repeating lines, and patterns ultimately sparked a new movement in modern American painting.

He was celebrated as a major American artist in New York’s “Harlem Renaissance.”

He played an integral role in creating opportunities and acceptance for other black artists.

He was hugely successful in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.

Johnson’s work was strongly influenced by Van Gogh, Cezanne and Soutine.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has more work created by him than any other individual artist. It houses over 1,000 of Johnson’s works.

First lady Michelle Obama selected a William H. Johnson painting to hang in the White House.

But in recognizing and studying the work of William H. Johnson, the impression he leaves on children is the biggest deal of all.

Dr. Hunter Stokes is the chairman of the museum’s board of trustees. He became involved with Johnsonwhen he was serving on the state museum’s board of directors.

“Not many people have a 110th birthday party,” he said with a laugh. “William Johnson is probably the best known person to come out of Florence one of the three most outstanding black artists in the country. I’m looking forward to the party and hope we have a good turnout.”

Stokes said the acquisition that will be unveiled Saturday “is by far the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen” and among the top three he ever did.

Johnson recognized early that his aspirations were to become an artist. After graduating from Wilson High School in 1918, he moved to New York City, where he was admitted to the National Academy of Design, a prestigious art school. He excelled in painting, studying with noted artist Charles Webster Hawthorne.

Johnson graduated in 1926 and with private funds raised by Hawthorne he departed for France to further his studies.

Johnson met Danish artist Holcha Krake in 1926. She was skilled in weaving and ceramics. They were married in 1930 in Denmark and spent most of the 1930s in Scandinavia. Here Johnson’s interests in primitivism and folk art began to have a noticeable impact on his work.

Johnson returned to New York in 1938 and set up a studio in Harlem. His French-inspired European landscapes and portraits attracted the attention of the New York art world.

His fame soon spread when he received a Harmon Foundation gold medal. News of his award appeared in major newspapers across the country and even his hometown of Florence

He had visited Florence in the early 1930s. During this visit, Johnson was given the chance to exhibit his work for one day at the Florence YMCA.

Johnson’s search for home and heritage was grounded in his Southern roots. The South was the source of his deep-seated memories of endless fields of cotton and tobacco, one-room wooden shacks, rickety wagons pulled by powerful mules and oxen, and stoic, denim-clad farm workers.

Johnson’s paintings repositioned the standard folk narratives about rural people and the South along an incredibly modern style by using simplified, colorful forms.

Johnson’s first major solo exhibition in New York opened in May 1941 – the first time most of his African-American, folk-inspired paintings were shown. The exhibition was reviewed by the two major art journals and by all the large daily newspapers in New York.

Johnson said his personal philosophy “is to express in a natural way what I feel, what is in me, both rhythmically and spiritually, all that which in time has been saved up in my family of primitiveness and tradition, and which is now concentrated in me.”

Johnson’s wife died in 1944. He was hospitalized at the Long Island’s Central Islip State Hospital in the late 1940s. He spent 23 years there before his death in 1970.

The Florence Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m.The museum is located at 558 Spruce St. and the website is www.florencemuseum.org.

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Resonate! Afternoon Series Explores Culture in African Diaspora

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This April, Lincoln Center’s Meet the Artist joins New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs to present Resonate! African America in Sound and Story, four, FREE, Wednesday after-school programs that will explore the cultural connections of the African Diaspora today. Each hour-long (4-5 p.m.) program features a performance by a noted African or African-American artist, followed by discussion and questions and answers moderated by Meklit Hadero, Artist-in-Residence of New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs. Tom Dunn, Director of the David Rubenstein Atrium said, “Lincoln Center is delighted to be partnering with NYU to present this series which is geared towards teens and college-aged students. ‘Resonate’ is an outgrowth of Lincoln Center’s long-running Meet the Artist School Series’ and the newest addition to on-going initiatives at the Atrium to bring free arts and events to the community.

“On April 6 African-American vocalist Chanda Rule and African vocalist Somi perform Listening to Roots & Voicing Branches, a multi-media work combining video, story and song that attempts to redress intra-racial tensions in the African Diaspora by exploring the cultural memory of various strands of the Black Atlantic experience.
April 13 features acclaimed singer/songwriter/guitarist Toshi Reagon, whose unique sound reflects a distinctive approach to rock, blues, R&B, country, folk, spirituals and funk, with a message that reaches deep into the heart and soul.

The April 20th program offers a solo dance performance by visionary dancer/choreographer, Zimbabwe-born Nora Chipaumire, (pictured) in work that breaks down all sorts of boundaries as it explores the meanings of identity in a complex world. The award-winning artist has performed and collaborated with Urban Bush Women, Anna Deveare Smith, and Thomas Mapfumo and his band.

The concluding program on April 27, And Lay Duo, is a special collaborative project by two members of the internationally-renowned Ethiopian funk and groove collective, Debo Band-Ethiopian-born saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and Boston percussionist Adam Clark. The two will premiere traditional Ethiopian folk songs and original compositions.

Now in its 31st season, Lincoln Center’s Meet the Artist School Series gives New York area students in grades Kindergarten through 12 the opportunity to learn about the performing arts and experience the arts first-hand from professional artists in diverse artistic disciplines. The series serves more than 20,000 school children annually with programs at Lincoln Center that combine a performance, participation, and carefully-prepared curriculum materials for teachers, as well as an optional tour of Lincoln Center.

In addition to the Meet the Artist School Series, Lincoln Center has introduced a number of Free community programs as offshoots of the series. Meet the Artist Saturdays, a family program, takes place on the first Saturday of each month in the David Rubenstein Atrium; the Meet the Artist Library Series, a program geared for audiences of all ages, takes artists into public libraries in the outer boroughs in the spring and summer; and this spring, Lincoln Center brings specially-designed Meet the Artist programs for seniors, children and teens to the Lincoln Square Community Center. All of the MTA programs are designed to introduce audiences to the arts through intimate, live performance, paired with the opportunity to engage with artists. Performers hail from diverse artistic disciplines, including music, dance, theater, and spoken word. For more information about Meet the Artist programs call Lincoln Center Visitor Services, 212-875-5370, 212.875.5289 or e-mail: hmcandrew@lincolncenter.org.
Ethiopian-American singer and songwriter Meklit Hadero, who will moderate the post-performance discussions for Resonate! African America in Sound and Story, is Artist-in-Residence at New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs for six weeks this spring. “She sings of fragility, hope and self-empowerment, and exudes all three,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle about one of her performances. Meklit’s music has a wide range of influences, from the jazz and soul favorites she grew up on; to hip-hop and art-rock; to folk traditions from the Americas and her forebears’ East African home. She was named a TED Global Fellow in 2009, and has been artist-in-residence at the De Young Museum and the Red Poppy Art House. Meklit is an Artist Consultant for the Association of Arts Presenters. For more information visit: Meklithadero.com

The Institute of African American Affairs (IAAA) at New York University was founded in 1969 to research, document, and celebrate the cultural and intellectual production of Africa and its diaspora in the Atlantic world and beyond. IAAA is committed to the study of Blacks in modernity through concentrations in Pan-Africanism and Black Urban Studies. For its spring 2011 artist-in-residence program, the IAAA presents “THE AFRICAN DIASPORA AND/IN THE WORLD,” a unique space of artistic collaboration between two great talents of the African Diaspora Meklit Hadero, (musician), and John Akomfrah, (filmmaker).

The Lewis Gallery says Goodbye, For Now

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By Elana Pici


For years, the Lewis Gallery has been a local go-to spot for custom framing and African-American inspired art. The gallery gave the community a chance to appreciate culture and tradition.

“Growing up, I don’t remember much imagery of people of color,” said Gwen Lewis, owner of Lewis Gallery. “Then I went to school and learned about the Harlem Renaissance and the flux of African-American artists and poets. I opened this gallery wanting to be a part of a new renaissance. We’re a very talented people!”

For years, the gallery did just that– welcomed the community inside, not only as a customer, but also as place to learn, discuss and experience art. The gallery, which just celebrated its 21st anniversary in February, will be closing its doors at the end of March.

“This has definitely been the roughest year, people just don’t have the funds to spend on art right now,” said Lewis.

Lewis, who went to school for fashion design, fell in love with manipulating paper with pen, pencil, watercolor and other mediums to create art. In the beginning, she and her husband would sell their art at flea markets on the street.

Then, one day a woman asked Lewis if she could frame some work for her. Lewis nodded enthusiastically, and from that day on immersed herself in the art behind framing. She learned her trade from other framers. In 1990, the shop opened: Their work had found a home, and Gwen had found a place to foster her talents.

“The best part sometimes is interacting with all of the different personalities,” said Lewis.

She has had the opportunity to meet the daughters of Malcolm X, politicians like Al Vann and Senator Montgomery, a handful of actors and actresses and many unsung heroes from the surrounding neighborhood of Bed-Stuy.

However, September 11th, 2001 was a real turning point; seeing that other people needed help awakened an urgency to do something herself. Over the years Lewis has helped Black Operators of McDonald’s, Brooklyn Chapters of Links, Bridge Street Preparatory School, Brooklyn Chapter AKA, Brooklyn Chapter Delta’s, Urban League and NAACP to name a few.

Her most recent volunteer efforts have been with the DIVAS for Social Justice, an organization devoted to encouraging young women of color to break boundaries and become leaders in the fields of new media and information technology.

Lewis has donated time and supplies to help fundraise for the girls, but also to educate and inspire them in something she knows well: Framing. Over the summer Lewis trained the older members of DIVAS how to frame their own artwork for an upcoming exhibition.

“The girls liked the idea of seeing themselves working with tools, seeing their inner beauty and feeling confident using screw guns and hammers and nails,” said Clarisa James, one of the founders of DIVAS.

“Framing is a male dominated job that I think women can be a real asset to. Gender shouldn’t be a part of the requirement, as long as you have the drive and the passion, women can do all of the same things,” said Lewis.

“Gwen is a dynamic, kind soul. She has this great relationship with so many people; she’s such a welcoming personality. It’s easy to bond with her and she’s so encouraging; with Gwen anything is possible,” said James.

Gwen says her last legacy will be with the DIVAS on March 25th, from 6-9 pm, where she will host a fundraiser giving the DIVAS 50 percent of the proceeds from all store sales that night.

And although the store is closing, Gwen has no intentions of fading away. She plans on doing street fairs and holiday markets and will stay in contact with all of her customers via email.

“I will miss having this home away from home, but running a business is a 24/7 job, and I’m looking forward to not having to be tied down to one location.”

As Gwen Lewis enters her new phase, she plans to continue running workshops and showing young entrepreneurs the tricks of the trade.

Though the doors of the Lewis Gallery may be closing, the spirit that kept the store going for all these years will be reborn in all of the girls who have learned under her creativity, ambition and guidance: “I’m going to teach, pass along my knowledge and give girls the freedom to create!”

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Liquidating L.A.’s heritage

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By Tim Rutten

The artworks by famed black artists Charles Alston and Hale Woodruff should stay here, not be sold to the Smithsonian.

The Golden State Mutual Life Insurance building on West Adams Boulevard is one of Los Angeles’ too-often-overlooked historical and cultural treasures.

It was designed in the late 1940s to house what was then the largest African American-owned business west of the Mississippi by one of the city’s storied architects, Paul Williams, certainly the most important black American architect of his generation. The building is a wonderful example of his singular capacity to meld utility and livability with an approach to design that wrung every ounce of expressive elegance from whatever style he engaged — in this case, Moderne.

The Golden State headquarters lobby also contains — and not by happenstance — two of the most significant works of art ever created here by African American artists, a complementary pair of murals titled “The Negro in California History” that comprises Charles Alston’s “Exploration and Colonization” and Hale Woodruff’s “Settlement & Development.” Both men were heavily influenced by the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, with whom Woodruff studied.

Whether these unique and uniquely important murals remain in Los Angeles, where they have hung since their completion in 1949, will be decided in court hearings that get underway in downtown Monday. Unless the current owners of the Williams building can persuade a judge to intervene, the murals will go to the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture.

How the city finds itself on the verge of losing treasures it barely knows it has is a complex story characterized by, at least, reasonable intentions on all sides.

From the start, the Alston and Woodruff murals, which were commissioned for specially designed spots high on either end of Williams’ elegant lobby, were considered the building’s chief spiritual as well as physical ornaments. As Golden State’s own description of them put it: “More than mere murals … these priceless panels incorporate documentary material, much of which appears in no annals of American history. California … her early black settlers, historical events, and physical terrain, dominate these murals.”

Like many historic black firms, however, Golden State found itself ill-equipped to compete for the business of an increasingly dispersed African American middle class. The company foundered for years and finally was seized by the state insurance commissioner, whose Conservation and Liquidation Office is in the process of disposing of Golden State’s assets, including what remains of its collection of African American art. The liquidation office contends that the murals, which were executed on canvas in consideration of seismic issues, are part of that collection. Therefore, it proposes to sell both to the Smithsonian for $750,000.

As Golden State failed, however, its headquarters was sold twice, most recently to Community Impact Development II LLC, the real estate holding arm of a nonprofit that provides a variety of social services in South L.A. That organization contends that the murals are an integral part of the building it purchased, and it is going to court to prevent their sale by the liquidator.

“These murals are part of the historic fiber of the community and a significant part of Los Angeles’ history,” said Marcos Velayos, the nonprofit’s attorney and a leading specialist in planning and land-use issues. “We think there is no better way to celebrate this history than by keeping the murals right here, where they always have been.” Velayos also points out that First American, the title insurer on the sale, has agreed to defend Community Impact’s claim in court.

The Los Angeles Conservancy also supports the claim and has asked the city to grant historic landmark status to the building with its murals. “Paul Williams selected the subjects and the artists for those murals,” Linda Dishman, the conservancy’s director, told me this week. “They’re absolutely integral to the building’s design. This is a quintessential building in terms of the African American experience in this city. It’s hard to imagine another situation where the most important black firm, black architect and black artists were all involved in a collaboration of this kind.”

For its part, the state’s Conservation and Liquidation Office is just doing its job, though in a narrow-minded sort of way. It’s hard to see which public interest is served by stripping Los Angeles of a cultural treasure. The Smithsonian can’t be blamed for wanting the murals, though it might keep in mind that, while the Elgin Marbles look fine in the British Museum, they’d look a lot better back on the Parthenon.

The Alston and Woodruff murals were commissioned and executed as a unique reflection of the African American culture that flowered here. They ought to remain in Los Angeles.

Philly tour highlights African American murals

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By Matt Korman





The thousands of murals famously dispersed throughout Philadelphia have become an iconic backdrop to a diverse city. Portraying pride, culture and a rich history, the size and scope of the murals continues to expand, correlating with the city’s ever-changing landscape. In celebration of the murals, the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program has announced the Robert M. Greenfield African American Iconic Images Collection. The collection is curated in partnership with the African American Museum in Philadelphia. It includes 47 of the city’s most famous murals portraying African American imagery and can be seen either by tour or through the Mural Arts Program’s website muralarts.org/iconicimages. “(The program) uses public art for social change,” said Cari Feiler Bender, spokesperson for the Mural Arts program, noting the organization’s unofficial moniker: “Art saves lives.” Bender also said the mural program aims to educate students around the area about the city’s art history. As part of the collection’s multimedia features, including online lesson plans, an audio tour — narrated by Roots drummer and Philadelphia native ?uestlove) — and video, the program will provide monthly public trolley tours of the city’s murals. The trolley tours will take place on the last Saturday of each month with the first scheduled for Saturday, March 26.

The tour will feature 21 of the city’s most famous murals, including several from Philadelphia native David McShane. McShane, a LaSalle University and Pennsyvania Academy of the Fine Arts graduate, has been working with the Mural Arts program for 16 years. McShane’s artwork has also been exhibited in France and Ireland. “I’ve done about 80 to 90 projects for the Mural Arts Program,” McShane said. Two of his prominent works, “Legendary Blue Horizon,” a four-square mural depicting legendary boxers against contrasting floral patterns, and “Jackie Robinson,” a black and white grid mural showing the baseball icon famously stealing home, are both on the tour. “I love a figure in motion,” McShane said. “Looking at figures in motion is almost like a beautiful ballet.” Tours for the program will begin at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch St. Tickets range from $17 to $27, with special discounts for seniors, students, and children, and include a general admission to the museum the day of the tour.


Getting to Know the Real Muhammad Ali at the Michener Art Museum

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By: Michener Art Museum

DOYLESTOWN, PA– Join Dr. Michael Ezra for an illustrated lecture on the story of Muhammad Ali, a now iconic figure in the hearts and minds of people around the globe, at the James A. Michener Art Museum, March 20, 3 to 4 pm. Ezra is guest curator of Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon, a photographic exhibit on view at the Museum through May 15.

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay) has always engendered an emotional reaction from the public. From his appearance as an Olympic champion to his iconic status as a national hero, his carefully constructed image and controversial persona has always been intensely scrutinized.

A specialist in the African American experience and Civil Rights, Ezra is the author of Muhammad Ali:The Making of an Icon (Temple University Press, 2009). Ezra considers the boxer who calls himself “The Greatest” from a new perspective. He writes about Ali’s pre-championship bouts, the management of his career and his current legacy, exploring the promotional aspects of Ali and how they were wrapped up in political, economic and cultural “ownership.”

The book increases our understanding of how difficult it is to know the real Ali, a simple man paradoxically imbued with great complexity. “Michael Ezra’s rigorously researched and engagingly written book at once illuminates and liberates one of our towering national figures. Stripping away the cant and fuzziness that has grown up around Muhammad Ali, Ezra delivers a fresh, intellectually challenging and ultimately invigorating understanding of the fighter and the man,” writes Richard O’Brien, Boxing Editor, Sports Illustrated.

Ezra’s incisive study examines the relationships between Ali’s cultural appeal and its commercial manifestations. Citing examples of the boxer’s relationship to the Vietnam War and the Nation of Islam—which serve as barometers of his “public moral authority”—Ezra analyzes the difficulties of creating and maintaining these cultural images, as well as the impact these themes have on Ali’s meaning to the public.

Ezra also is the editor of The Civil Rights Movement: People and Perspectives (ABC-CLIO). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and chairs the Department of Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State in California. Copies of Dr. Ezra’s book, Muhammad Ali:The Making of an Icon, will be available for purchase in the Museum Shop and for signing by the author following the program.

See the full press release for Ali and Elvis: The Making of an Icon here: http://www.michenermuseum.org/press/?item=2010-12-15

The James A. Michener Art Museum is located at 138 South Pine St., Doylestown, Pa. Museum hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10 am to 4:30 pm;

Saturday 10 am to 5 pm; Sunday noon to 5 pm. Curator’s Exhibition Lecture and Book signing: Dr. Michael Ezra, March 20, 3-4 pm, $20 ($10 members). Admission: Members and children under 6, free; adults $12.50; seniors $11.50; college student with valid ID $9.50; ages 6-18 $6; under 6 free. For more information, visitwww.michenerartmuseum.org or call 215-340-9800.

Annual support for the Michener Art Museum is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Bucks County Commissioners and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

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