MLK Park and ‘Freedom Form #2’ sculpture rededicated

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, …

The “Collard Greens” Circuit: Alternative Model For Distribution & Exhibition Of Black Indies

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 …

Gallery helps create epicenter for art

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, …

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts honors military with open house

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts dedicates a special night to the military community every year. The free open house, held Aug. 18, honored active duty, Reserve, Guard, retirees and their families in the River Region. “This evening is our special way of demonstrating our appreciation for the contributions made by current and retired military …

Baltimore County African American Cultural Festival

Save the date for the, “15th Annual Baltimore County African American Cultural Festival” on Saturday, September 17th from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. at Towson Courts Patriot Plaza, 400 Washington Avenue in Towson. Entertainment will feature: Anthony David, Art Sherrod, Trina Broussard, Noel Gourdin, Marcus Johnson and April Sampe. Participants interested in the Idol Competition …

An absence of tributes to black leaders

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, to be dedicated Sunday, is the first monument to a black leader on the National Mall, a landscape devoted to American cultural and political iconography. In Philadelphia, there is no such memorial, to King or any other black leader, in Center City. No African Americans have been favored …

Motown songwriter Nick Ashford dies

Nick Ashford, who along with wife Valerie Simpson helped set the gold standard for R&B duets, both as songwriters and performers, died of throat cancer Monday in a New Yorkhospital. He was 69. Ashford & Simpson — you can’t think of one without the other — penned and produced almost all of the ’60s hits …

‘Porgy & Bess:’ Tweaking A Classic For The 21st Century

“Summertime,” one of the most recorded songs in music history, has been reinterpreted by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, to Brian Wilson and Janis Joplin. But the lullaby was first heard in “Porgy & Bess,” a 1935 American folk opera by George Gerswhin, his brother Ira Gershwin, and author DuBose Heyward. Now, 76 …

You Must Remember This

Kevin Jerome Everson’s short films about ordinary African-American life are completely unordinary. Yet despite their frequent appearance in film festivals and on museum film programs, they have yet to sink fully into art world consciousness. Even when Mr. Everson’s striking seven-minute “Emergency Needs” was in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, it was sidelined, as biennial films …

‘Runway’ designer right at home on ‘Porgy and Bess’ set

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, …

African-American art in Savannah, fests, more in store

Savannah steals a little thunder this fall with the opening of a major showcase for African-American art, but Atlanta doesn’t lack for big cultural events of its own. Here’s a quick sampling: The Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, adding an exemplary collection of African-American art collected by the retired Savannah surgeon to …

Ohr museum tickets free on holiday

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 …

Whiff of African heritage in capital’s artscape

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 …

‘Material Girls’: 8 African American artists update a tradition

They collect discarded objects, such as tiny glass medicine bottles. One dyes tissue paper and creates floats of color. One goes to a quarry and uses volcanic rock to make sculptures. Another sees beauty in the hardness and blackness of tires. A group of African American women are paying homage to the generations-old tradition of …