MINNEAPOLIS: Radical Presence - Black Performance in Contemporary Art

Senga Nengudi, RSVP, 1975-77. Maren Hassinger performance at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, November 17, 2012.
Photo: Max Fields. Image via walkerart.org.

July 24, 2014 – January 4, 2015

WALKER ART CENTER

1750 Hennepin Avenue

Minneapolis, MN

From walkerart.org:

This groundbreaking exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black artists working from the perspective of the visual arts from the 1960s to the present. While black performance has been largely contextualized as an extension of theater, visual artists have integrated performance into their work for more than five decades, generating an important history that has gone largely unrecognized until now.

Presenting a rich and complex look at this important facet of contemporary art, the exhibition chronicles the emergence and development of black performance art across three generations, beginning with Fluxus and conceptual art in the early 1960s through present-day practices. Featuring more than 100 works by some 36 artists, Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art includes video and photo documentation of performances, scores and installations, interactive works, and artworks created as a result of performative actions. A dynamic range of performances, actions, and discussions will accompany the exhibition’s run at the Walker. Catalogue available.

Organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH).

Radical Presence Press Release

Exhibit Link

MEDIA NEWS: Adrian Piper Pulls Out of Black Performance-Art Show

Adrian Piper. Image via musiqology.wordpress.com.

Venerable Conceptual artist withdraws from "Radical Presence" at Grey Art Gallery, asserting it marginalizes African American artists

From artforum.com, October 31, 2013:

Robin Cembalest reports in ARTnews that artist Adrian Piper has pulled her work out of “Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art,” an exhibition that’s currently up at the Grey Art Gallery. The monitor in the gallery that played video documentation of Piper’s canonic work, Mythic Being, 1973, in which she wore an Afro wig and wire-rimmed sunglasses and challenged public perceptions while navigating the streets of New York, had been shut off. Over the monitor, a note included parts of a letter from Piper that shed some light on her reasons for declining to participate. Wrote Piper: “I appreciate your intentions. Perhaps a more effective way to ‘celebrate [me], [my] work and [my] contributions to not only the art world at large, but also a generation of black artists working in performance,’ might be to curate multi-ethnic exhibitions that give American audiences the rare opportunity to measure directly the groundbreaking achievements of African American artists against those of their peers in ‘the art world at large.’”

The note also included a response from the show’s curator, Valerie Cassel Oliver, who wrote: “It is clear, that some experiences are hard to transcend and that stigmas about blackness remain not only in the public’s consciousness, but also in the consciousness of artists themselves. It is my sincere hope that exhibitions such as ‘Radical Presence’ can one day prove a conceptual game changer.”

Read ARTnews web exclusive by Robin Cembalest here.

HOUSTON: Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art



Simone Leigh and Chitra Ganesh, Untitled #1 (From the series “my works, my dreams, must wait till after hell”), 2012. 

Image via camh.org.

November 17, 2012 – February 15, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, November 16, 2012, 7-9PM

CONTEMPORARY ARTS MUSEUM HOUSTON

5216 Montrose Boulevard

Houston, TX

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art chronicles the persistence of black performance in the field of visual arts.  While black performance has been largely contextualized as an extension of theater, black visual artists have integrated performance into their work for over five decades, generating a repository of performance work that has gone largely unrecognized until now.  Radical Presence provides a critical framework to discuss the history of black performance traditions within the visual arts beginning with the “happenings” of the early 1960s, throughout the 1980s, and into the contemporary practices of a new generation of artists. This exhibition is organized by Senior Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver.

The exhibition will feature work by three generations of artists including Derrick Adams, Terry Adkins, Papo Colo, Jamal Cyrus, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Theaster Gates, Zachary Fabri, Sherman Fleming, Coco Fusco, Girl [Chitra Ganesh + Simone Leigh], David Hammons, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Lyle Ashton Harris, Maren Hassinger, Wayne Hodge, Satch Hoyt, Ulysses S. Jenkins, Shaun El C. Leonardo, Kalup Linzy, Dave McKenzie, Jayson Musson, Senga Nengudi, Tameka Norris, Lorraine O’Grady, Clifford Owens, Benjamin Patterson, Adam Pendleton, Adrian Piper, Pope.L, Rammellzee, Sur Rodney (Sur), Jacolby Satterwhite, Dread Scott, Xaviera Simmons, Danny Tisdale, Carrie Mae Weems, among others.  Radical Presence will feature video and photo documentation of performances, performance installations and relics, as well as ephemera related to the featured performance works.

Exhibit Link

CLIP ART: Valerie Cassel Oliver / Senior Curator / Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Clipped from "Artworld" column in May 2011 issue of Art in America magazine.

 

Read more here