LIMITED EDITION PRINT: "ALL DAT GLITTERS AINT GOALS" by Fahamu Pecou

Fahamu Pecou, All That Glitters Aint Goals, 2012, Acrylic, gold leaf and oil stick on canvas, 74 x 60 inches. Image via fahamupecouart.com 

Fahamu Pecou Art is proud to announce the limited print release of  ALL DAT GLITTERS AINT GOALS

AS SEEN ON THE HIT TELEVISION SHOW EMPIRE!

Archival ink print on 24” x 22” artist paper

Edition of 100, signed and numbered by the artist

$225

Order your own version of ALL DAT GLITTERS AINT GOALS and get your groove on like Cookie Lyon!!!

Click here to purchase.

COVER: Rashaad Newsome / ART PAPERS / January – February 2014

Rashaad Newsome, Fitted Crown, 2011, leather, jewelry, fitted hat, 8 x 9.75 x 11.25 inches, edition of 45. 

Courtesy of the artist and Marlborough Gallery, NY; © Rashaad Newsome.

ART PAPERS’ “ART X HIP-HOP” installment is devoted to the dynamic intersection of contemporary art and hip-hop. Guest edited by Fahamu Pecou, the issue also concludes a year-long series of quest editions, each devoted to a single theme – from architecture and design, to art magazines themselves.

Fahamu Pecou Guest Editor statement: 

Mic check, 1-2, 1-2 ...

Welcome to the Art x Hip-Hop issue of ART PAPERS.

As with my own work, this issue is dedicated to investigating hip-hop and contemporary art—not as isolated encounters, but rather where they intersect, how they complement and enhance each other, and, ultimately, how in conversation they act to transgress the status quo.

What hip-hop brings to the art establishment is refreshing, inviting, and frankly—fun.

In return, through its engagement with the high arts, hip-hop is elevated beyond its status as a subculture and into a more serious cultural and critical purview.

Over the last few years, and certainly in recent months, the mashup between contemporary art and hip-hop has taken center stage.

We've had the privilege of experiencing some really compelling projects and collaborations between visual and hip-hop artists that have pushed the boundaries of both art forms. Whether we're talking record-breaking crowds of hip-hop fans crammed into MoMA PS1's courtyard, multimedia collaborations between Pharrell Williams and Takashi Murakami, or experiencing Urs Fischer through the eyes of Kanye West, the game has most certainly changed.

I predict that what we've seen thus far is only the beginning. There is certainly much more to come. I am proud and honored to have the opportunity to engage these burgeoning questions in the pages of this journal. Now seems an appropriate time to open a dialog that does more than see hip-hop as novelty, or contemporary art as unapproachable.

I invite my colleagues in the arts community to shed your inhibitions about hip-hop culture. In it is a liberating energy that calls to the unpredictable and creative spirit of the fine arts. Likewise, to my friends in the hip-hop community, I implore you to open your minds to the wealth of inspiration and innovation that is born in the visual arts. Know that hip-hop culture has its roots there and only from there can it continue to bloom.

Now, let's get this thing started ... and ... bass up the track a little,

I wanna hear that boom-chh-boom ... you know what I'm sayin'!?!

—Fahamu Pecou

Articles in the issue:

Eye Candy Is Dandy: Rashaad Newsome’s Hip-Hop Heraldry & the New Black Swag

Render, R.A.P. Music,and “Reagan”: Killer Mike & the Hip-Hop Imagination

The Devil Is a Liar: The Diasporic Trickster Tales of Jean-Michel Basquiat & Kendrick Lamar

Neither Queer nor There: Categories, Assemblages, and Transformations

Beyond the Abyss: Neo-Hip-Hop Cultural Expression

Interview with Charlie Ahearn

Picasso Baby: Hip-Hop and the Appropriation of Space

On the Production of Value: Mohamed Bourouissa's All-In

Artist Projects: DJ Adrian Loving, Marcia Jones, Rob Pruitt and Bayeté Ross Smith

Reviews: Art Beat + Lyrics, Atlanta; Wangechi Mutu, Brooklyn; Loretta Fahrenholz, New York; Banksy, New York; Odd Future + Henry Darger

Pick up a copy of the January/February 2014 issue of ART PAPERS on newsstands now or buy the issue here.

Follow ART X HIP-HOP on Twitter.

ART X HIP-HOP on Tumblr.

HOUSTON: Fahamu Pecou

Fahamu Pecou, All Dat Glitters Ain't Goals. Image via blueorangehouston.com.

All Dat Glitters Ain’t Goals HOUSTON

June 21 – July 13, 2013

BLUEorange

1208 West Gray Street

Houston, TX

BLUEorange is proud to announce All Dat Glitters Ain't Goals HOUSTON, featuring the work of internationally renowned artist Fahamu Pecou. This exhibit of self-portraiture paired with music videos, comments on pop culture and merges it with fine art in a fresh way.

Fahamu Pecou is an artist and scholar based out of Atlanta, Georgia, featured in multiple solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. Pecou’s paintings, performance art, and scholarly work focus on the depiction of black masculinity in popular culture and how these images impact both the reading and performance of black male masculinity and identity.

Exhibit Link

PARIS: Fahamu Pecou

Fahamu Pecou, A.W.N. (Artists With Négritude), 2012, Acrylic on Canvas. Image via backslashgallery.com

NEGUS in Paris
January 10 - February 23, 2013

BLACKSLASH GALLERY

29 rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth

Paris, France

Backslash Gallery is pleased to welcome back American artist Fahamu Pecou, whose latest paintings and drawings address the representations of black men in modern society, engaging in particular with the idea of Négritude as famously symbolized by Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor.

Black Americans can cite numerous anecdotes about the various uses of the word ‘black’, one striking example being actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s description of hip-hop superstars Jay-Z and Kanye West’s West Watch the Throne Tour. Paltrow posted a photo of the pair on her Twitter account, accompanied by the message “Niggas in Paris, for real”. Her use of the word “nigger” created a storm on her Twitter account although she was simply repeating the word “niggas” used by Jay-Z and Kanye West as part of the title for a song off their eponymous album. Often heard within black American society, the word when written down by a white person raises questions of legitimacy, and the matter was very widely debated. Is it possible for a white person to use the word “nigger” in the light of history’s heavy burden of racism and slavery? 

Fahamu Pecou, Negus in Paris, for real (featuring Gwyneth Paltrow), 2012, Graphite, gold leaf and oil stick on paper.
Image via backslashgallery.com

The NEGUS in Paris exhibition, inspired by Jay-Z and Kanye West’s song " Niggas in Paris", constitutes an acerbic analysis that challenges a certain conformism, particularly that displayed by Black American culture, which can distort the image of Négritude within the public debate. With his characteristic wit and feel for satire, Fahamu Pecou offers timely observations on the various conflicts relating to black iconisation as triggered by this debate and their influence on popular culture.

Pecou replaces the terms “niggas” with “Negus”, an Amharic word used to describe Ethiopian royalty in general, and Haile Selassie in particular. He uses this wordplay to subvert the endless hate-filled insinuations that surround use of the word “nigger”. The works in the exhibition feature a series of black Americans famous for their contributions to the history of Parisian art and culture, exploring their influence and distinction. 

Fahamu Pecou’s works have been shown worldwide, including at the Torrance Art Museum in California (2010), Bell-Roberts Gallery in Cape Town (2009), Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn (2008), Austin Museum of Art in Texas (2008) and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (2005). Fahamu Pecou has a particularly active online presence and has initiated a large number of debates on modern art’s place in contemporary American society, in particular via the 15 Project, a program of conferences held at arts centers, museums and universities in Europe and the USA. In 2011, he was awarded the NBAF Impressions Emerging Artist Award.

Press contact : delphine@backslashgallery.com

Exhibit Link

FIVE: Joi Gilliam

“FIVE” is a special feature at BlackArtistNews where five questions are posed to an individual artist, curator, gallerist, collector or art lover. Why five questions? Well, there are five fingers on each hand and artists create with their hands hence one, two, three, four, FIVE.

Joi at the Apollo Music Cafe. February 12, 2011. BlackArtistNews photo. All rights reserved.

If you're familiar with Joi Gilliam's gutbucket brand of rock and soul music then you know she's funkier than Cee Lo Green in a fur jump suit. And despite a professional career that boils underground -- she's only released two major label recordings, one of which is out of print -- Joi's influence has spilled into the mainstream through the music acts of Madonna, TLC, OutKast, Erykah Badu and Janelle Monae. Her brief stint with the hit R&B music group Lucy Pearl brought on a mixture of delight and confusion to her hardcore fans but it was short-lived; the group disbanded shortly after she joined. But that -- thankfully -- hasn't stopped her joyful noise: In 2010 she formed the hard rock collaborative Hot Heavy & Bad with Devon Lee. Listen to their mixtape featuring covers of classics by Johnny Cash, Heart, Kansas, and The Who and you'll surmise them a hipper, more soulful version of Allison Krauss and Robert Plant. Last December, the tandem launched the sale of original tunes through their ReverbNation band page. When BlackArtistNews discovered that the Hot Heavy & Bad logo was designed by none other than Fahamu Pecou (and why not, he is "the shit") we had to get into the groove with the funky diva for a psycha-soula-rockalious "FIVE":

JOI:  Look at that little thing. 

BAN: It's small but effective. (Ms. Gilliam and I were referring to my digital voice recorder.) 
So we all know you da shit…

[Laughs] Actually, Fahamu Pecou is da shit.

See.The self proclaimed...

I’m the bomb, he’s the shit.

So how did you stink bombs get together and detonate the Hot Heavy and Bad logo?

[Laughs] Fahamu listened to the music. Devon Lee and I let him listen to it about a year ago. He was very inspired by it and asked if he could do the logo. And of course we were like ‘Hell yeah!’  Fahamu is an artist [with] hutzpa. He came forward with it: [the logo] is bad assness transcending -- even in death. And that was it. We knew it when we saw it. We were like 'Yeah, that's it.' 

Hot Heavy & Bad logo by Fahamu Pecou.

On YouTube, there are clips of you performing at Littlefield in Brooklyn and in the background images of Kara Walker, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Funkadelic, etc. are being projected. Who curated that? 

  

That would be Lynnee Denise. I met her years ago. She's a graduate of Fisk University and she's an intellectual, art lover and teacher in [New York City] and she curated that show because she got tired of wanting to see me perform in New York but nobody wanted to [book] me. She curated that show. She's the bomb. 

Do you have a favorite visual artist?

Um, do I have a favorite visual artist? I don't. I just like what I like at different times.  I don't claim to be a hardcore, connoisseur of visual art but I know what I like, and know what moves me.

Does art matter?

Art is essential. Art is life. And insanity.

Fahamu Pecou and Joi Gilliam, circa 2006. From the photo archives of Sol Fusion.

YouTube: "ONE" by Hot Heavy & Bad

YouTube: Joi NYC Slum Beautiful WildSeed Cultural Group

(Note: Joi comes in around the 3:11 mark.)

Joi presents The HotHeavy&Bad...The EP

Joi's Badass Revenge

CLIP ART: Fahamu Pecou / Uptown magazine / Dec-Jan 2012

Article by Isoul H. Harris

The December/January 2012 issue of Uptown magazine is on newsstands now.

Uptown magazine

Peeping Pecou

Fahamu Pecou Art 

PANEL DISCUSSION: It's Bigger Than Hip Hop / Hagedorn Foundation Gallery / Atlanta, GA / July 9, 2011

Hagedorn Foundation Gallery

Fahamu Pecou Overview of Discussion

VIDEO: r/EGRESS/ion by Fahamu Pecou

r/EGRESS/ion is the video accompaniment to Fahamu Pecou's critically acclaimed series, Hard2Death:2nd Childhood.

Artist Site

ATLANTA: "Home" Curated by Fahamu Pecou / City Gallery Chastain / June 10 - July 23, 2011

Location: 

Chastain Arts Center

135 West Wieuca Road, NW

Atlanta, GA

Kombo Chapfika, All You Can Eat Buffet (2010), Mixed media on canvas, 16"x20". 
Courtesy of City Gallery Chastain.

Atlanta artist Fahamu Pecou puts on his curatorial hat with the exhibition “Home” featuring work by emerging Georgia talent. This exhibition seeks to give a glimpse into the future of the cultural landscape of a region through the work of creative young minds. Featured artists include Kombo Chapfika, Ashley Reid, Terra Coles, Stephen Hayes, and Cosmo Whyte; five promising visual artists whose works are gaining attention in the world of contemporary art within the state. This exhibition will be on view from June 10 until July 23, 2011.  The opening reception will be Friday, June 10 from 6:00 – 9:00 PM - - the Artists Talk will be Saturday, July 9 from 1:00 – 3:00 PM.  This exhibition and program is co-presented by the National Black Arts Festival.  

“As international, national and local politics become more and more the subject of pop culture discourse, I wanted to create an exhibit that presents a new awareness of how politics, education and culture are coming to redefine life in our home state of Georgia” says exhibition organizer Fahamu Pecou. The work in this show will feature new names, new ideas, new approaches and a new sense of the notion of what it means to call Georgia "home". 

Cosmo Whyte, Well Travelled African. Courtesy of City Gallery Chastain.

“Home” is co-presented by the National Black Arts Festival (NBAF). NBAF produces year-round educational programming, as well as events presented in collaboration with national and local partners, in addition to the annual summer festival for which the organization is named. This partnership is important to the Chastain Arts Center because we want to expand awareness of our center and what better way to increase visibility than to work with an organization like the NBAF.

About Chastain Arts Center

Chastain Arts Center is one of the oldest community arts center in Atlanta. Its mission has always been to provide a nurturing place where artists of all ages and skill levels are encouraged to create, learn and enjoy. Visit http://www.ocaatlanta.com/ for more information.

NBAF Event Details