SYMPOSIUM + BOOK LAUNCH: Black Is, Black Ain’t

Featuring Huey Copeland, Thelma Golden, Kellie Jones, Bennett Simpson, and Hamza Walker

Sunday, December 8, 2013, 2PM

THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Kent Hall, Room 107

1020 East 58^th Street

Chicago, IL

Symposium:

On the occasion of publishing the Black Is, Black Ain’t exhibition catalog, the Renaissance Society has organized a symposium revisiting issues raised in the exhibition of the same name, curated by Hamza Walker and shown at the Society in 2008. Given the extent to which race is bound to visual representation, exhibitions have played no small role in instigating discussion. They are where identity has been asserted, critiqued, and dismantled, all in a healthy circular fashion. This symposium’s cast of curators, critics, and scholars will reflect on a series of seminal exhibitions from Black Male (1994) through Blues for Smoke (2012) and the context in which they were mounted, from the riots ensuing in the wake of the Rodney King beating to Obama’s presidential election.

Panelists:

Huey Copeland, moderator, Associate Professor of Art History at Northwestern University

Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem

Kellie Jones, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University

Bennett Simpson, Curator at Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles

Hamza Walker, Associate Curator and Director of Education at the Renaissance Society

Publication:

Black Is, Black Ain’t is a generously illustrated, 196 page exhibition catalog documenting work by 26 artists and featuring essays by Huey Copeland, Darby English, Greg Foster-Rice, Amy Mooney, Kym Pinder, Krista Thompson, Hamza Walker, and Kenneth Warren. This group exhibition, curated by Hamza Walker, explored an evolution in the discourse of race from an earlier emphasis on inclusion to a recent shift to racial identity being simultaneously rejected and retained.

Black Is, Black Ain’t was first exhibited at the Renaissance Society, then traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2009) and the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute (2009).

Symposium Link

FORUM: Theaster Gates, Vera List Center Biennial Prize Winner

Theaster Gates at the Dorchester Project, Chicago 2012. Photo via theartnewspaper.com. 

Theaster Gates: A Way of Working

Forum, Lecture, and Gallery Presentation at the New School

Forum

Wednesday, September 18th, 10am–2:30pm

Thursday, September 19th, 10am–12pm

The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center

55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor, New York

Artist lecture and Prize presentation

Wednesday, September 18th, 7pm

The New School, Tishman Auditorium

66 West 12th Street, New York

Gallery Presentation

Wednesday, September 18th–October 5th, 2013

Opening: September 18th, 5–6:30pm

The Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons The New School for Design

66 Fifth Avenue, New York

Hours: Daily noon–6pm, Thursdays noon–8pm

In tribute to Theaster Gates, recipient of the inaugural Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics presents a conference, artist lecture and a gallery installation collectively entitled Theaster Gates: A Way of Working.

These programs are the culmination of The New School's 18-month engagement with the artist and his work, and takes place alongside numerous courses across the university. Theaster Gates: A Way of Working offers a view into how the artist develops synergies within his far-reaching work, and examines the complex ways of creating and maintaining an expanded studio practice rooted in institutional engagement, object making, and the production of space. Gates is globally renowned for his genre-defying explorations of community, history, race, and politics.

The two-day public forum (September 18–19) explores Gates' prize-winning Dorchester Projects and issues arising from the work such as migration, belief and ecologies of organizing. Voices from fields such as art, urban policy, economics, jazz, political science, and religious studies from The New School and beyond illuminate the multifaceted and ongoing project, and ultimately call for new notions of social justice brought about by aesthetic practices. Speakers include Jane Bennett (Johns Hopkins) and Shannon Jackson (UC Berkeley) as well as The New School faculty members Katayoun Chamany, Andrea Geyer, Richard Harper, Lydia Matthews, Jasmine Rault, Radhika Subramaniam, and others.

Dedicated to the artist's prize-winning work Dorchester Projects, the conference is anchored by a lecture by Theaster Gates and the presentation of the award, designed by Yoko Ono, on September 18 at 7pm. It is preceded by the opening celebration of the gallery installation at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center (SJDC) at Parsons The New School for Design from 5–6:30pm.

The gallery presentation of Theaster Gates: A Way of Working, organized to accompany the forum and spark ongoing conversation, includes excerpts of works and project series from Gates' studio. Rather than explore the chronological development of Gates' work, the presentation focuses on the uniquely non-linear nature of his methods of working, thinking, and creating. Project elements include a rickshaw inspired by recent visits to Haiti and Mexico; drawings and studies; videos; and a large-scale organizational chart mapping elements of the artist's way of working.

Launched to celebrate the VLC's 20th anniversary, the Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics honors an artist or group of artists who engage political themes and take personal risks to advance social justice in profound and visionary ways. International in scope, the biennial prize is awarded for a particular project's long-term impact, boldness, and artistic excellence. Following an extensive research and evaluation process that enlisted the advice of a jury and a nominator's council of leading artists, art historians, and curators worldwide, Theaster Gates was named inaugural recipient of the prize for his Dorchester Projects. More than a single moment of recognition, the prize represents a long-term commitment to the question of how the arts advance social justice, how we speak of, evaluate, and teach such work.

Admission to all events is free. 

For more details, visit the Vera List Center website.

Theaster Gates: Dorchester Projects from Smart Museum of Art on Vimeo.

RECAP: Black Artists Head to [B.A.R.] for a Think

Image via blackartistsretreat.com.

On August 22 and 23, 2013, Theaster Gates hosted a private event called The Black Artists Retreat in Chicago. Posted here are the contents of an electronic message which recapped the event:

Date: August 30, 2013, 3:18:16 PM CDT

To: undisclosed-recipients

Subject: [B.A.R.] Looking Forward and Thanks!

Dearest, 

One week ago we were flush with preparations to welcome you all here in Chicago for the Black Artists Retreat. Nearly 100 artists, creatives, and supporters gathered to begin an important conversation about the state of the arts, collaboration, and responsibility. 

Candida Alvarez shared a favorite Langston Hughes passage on Thursday night reminding us to laugh and Kerry James Marshall remarked that although often in studio solitude we are not islands; this kind of coming together is critical. On Friday the historical yet prescient, text The Black Artist in America: A Symposium was dramatized and we were began to establish a baseline from which to move forward.  

The transcript from 1969 may have held more similarities to 2013 than we would have imagined but let us read Mr. Gilliam's words once more, pg 254:

      We're necessarily speaking of a job for the future. We've been few in number; the injustice of the whole social situation has made it so that we are few in number. We need not only to develop Black craftsmen, but also Black historians, Black critics. We need more Black-owned art galleries: let's talk about  moving into business-art is a business. This a thing that concerns us. If we're looking for ways art- or black art- can be developed within a community, then  let's talk about all the things that are really necessary to develop it.

We convened, we dance, we ate, we drank and we started something. We will be taking the next few weeks to gather information and responses from the retreat to shift the www.blackartistsretreat.com website into a platform that allows us, and others who could not join, to interact prior to next gatherings. 

We have attached the group photo from Friday afternoon-what a beautiful bunch of people you all are!

In addition to the virtual communications we have had and will have, if you have not provided us your postal address, please do so here: www.postable.com/blackartistsretreat

Thank you all for participating in such a rare and special moment!

Take care,

eliza and Marlease

[B.A.R.] Stewards

CONFERENCE: Black Portraiture[s]: The Black Body in the West

Photo: The Merchant of Venice, 2010, Kiluanji Kia Henda

January 17, 2013 - January 20, 2013

École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts
Paris 7 University, Amphitheater
Musée du quai Branly

Paris, France

Conference organizers:

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Deborah Willis, Awam Amkpa, Manthia Diawara, Lydie Diakhaté, Cheryl Finley, Thelma Golden, Anne-Christine Taylor-Descola, Anna Laban, Christine Barthe, Jean-Paul Colleyn, Caroline Montel-Glénisson, and Raissa Lahcine

Event details: 

Paris. an internationally key and highly influential Western space in all things concerning the arts and modernity, is the perfect stage for Black Portraiture[s]: The Black Body in the West, the fifth in a series of conferences organized by Harvard University and NYU since 2004. Black Portraiture[s} explores ideas of the production of self-representation, desire, and the exchange of the gaze from the 19th century to the present day in fashion, film, art, and the archives. How do these images, both positive and negative, define, replicate, and transform the black body? Why and how does the black body become a commodity in the global marketplace and what are its legacies? Also, importantly, what are the responses and implications? How can performing blackness be liberating for performer and audience? How the black body has been imagined in the West has always been a rich site for global examination and contestation. The depiction of black peoples often has been governed by prevailing attitudes about race and sexuality. The conference will draw on the ideas and works of leading and emerging writers, photographers, scholars, artists, curators and filmmakers of our time and will include a broader discussion of Africa in the popular imagination.

Click here for event schedule and more information.

ALLIANCE CONFERENCE 2012: The Saint Louis Art Museum / July 12-15

Broad range of art experts and connoisseurs brought together for the 12th National Alliance of African and African American Art Support Groups 

The Saint Louis Art Museum will play host to “Navigating the Mainstream: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future,” the 2012 convention of the National Alliance of African and African American Art Support Groups, on July 12-15.  

Over three days, more than 25 prominent artists and scholars will discuss the rich history and development of African and African American arts. Conference panels and presentations will also address the best practices regarding the collection and preservation of these works as well as their presentation and interpretation, especially in mainstream museums. 

In one such panel, distinguished scholar Dr. David Driskell, professor emeritus of the University of Maryland, will discuss his role in assisting many organizations and individuals in assembling art collections, most notably the Camille and Bill Cosby Collection and the Driskell collection. In 1995, Dr. Driskell supervised the White House’s first purchase of a work of art by an African American artist. 

In addition to engaging in critical discussion and reflection, conference participants will explore surrounding arts organizations such as Theaster Gates’s Rebuild Foundation, located and active in the Hyde Park neighborhood. Rebuild Foundation brings together artists, architects, developers, educators, and community activists throughout the Midwest to affect creative community change. 

The conference will also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Romare Bearden Graduate Minority Museum Fellowship. The fellowship was named for African American artist Romare Bearden, who supported young and emergent artists throughout his life, with the goal of preparing minority graduate students for careers in arts and cultural institutions.   

The National Alliance Conference coincides with the summer exhibition of renowned print artist Kara Walker’s Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) by KaraWalker. Featured in Gallery 321 until August 26, 2012, Walker’s prints explore historical and contemporary views of the Civil War through parataxis.  This exhibition was co-curated by the 2011-2012 Romare Bearden Graduate Minority Fellow.  

For more information on the conference, including schedules, guest speakers and registration, visit slam.org/bearden2012. Follow the conference on Twitter at @Bearden2012. 

The Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the nation’s leading comprehensive art museums with collections that include works of art of exceptional quality from virtually every culture and time period. Areas of notable depth include Oceanic art, pre-Columbian art, ancient Chinese bronzes and European and American art of the late 19th and 20th centuries, with particular strength in 20th-century German art. The Museum offers a full range of exhibitions and educational programming generated independently and in collaboration with local, national and international partners.  Admission to the Saint Louis Art Museum is free to all every day. For more information about the Saint Louis Art Museum, call 314.721.0072 or visit  slam.org.

SYMPOSIUM: Festival of the New Black Imagination / Long Island University / Brooklyn, NY / October 15, 2011

The Festival of the New Black Imagination is about inspiration and ideas. It’s a space for innovative and provocative black cultural producers—progressive creators in music, film, theater, literature, visual arts, etc. to share their ideas and passion. Most importantly, it is a platform that highlights those who are on the forefront of redefining and expanding notions of black authenticity for the 21st century. Get inspired.

When:

Saturday, October 15, 2011.

Where:

Littlefield (littlefieldnyc.com) for the concert 

Long Island University (Brooklyn campus) for the symposium

Components:

To start, the Festival is conceived as a daylong program that will include:

A symposium during the day comprised of panels and up-to-the-minute talks. 

Confirmed participants include: 

• Greg Tate, journalist, cultural critic, co-founder of the Black Rock Coaltion, and bandleader 
• Farai Chideya, award-winning multimedia journalist and author
• Renee Cox, celebrated photographer
• Howard Duffy, architect, designer and Principal, HTD Studio
• Nona Hendryx, music icon
• Dr. Nat Irvin II, noted futurist and professor at University of Louisville College of Business
• Tyehimba Jess, award-winning poet
• Tamar-kali, singer/songwriter, hardcore warrior soul goddess
• Vernon Reid, Grammy Award-winning guitarist of Living Colour, and
• Kyra Gaunt-Palmer, Ph.D., ethnomusicologist, edupreneur, singer-songwriter and inaugural TED Fellow.

There will be an evening concert featuring artists, such as: 

• Tamar-Kali (confirmed)
• Imani Uzuri (confirmed) and more.

Fiscal Sponsor:

The Festival of the New Black Imagination is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.

Contact:

Rob Fields | Boldaslove.us

917.687.0704 | rafields@gmail.com | Twitter @robfields

nbifestival.org | @nbifestival | facebook.com/nbifestival

Source

Rob Fields Festival Annoucement