SoulClap

Humor...

"Schopenhauer thinks that the human being starts where humor starts: that's where you are.  I just love it, not only because it is art but because it is so human". 
- Hans Richter to Kosta Alex, Ocotber 12, 1974

Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980

Senga Nengudi, Performance with R.S.V.P.X (1977)

 

"This comprehensive exhibition examines the incredibly vital but often overlooked legacy of Los Angeles's African American visual artists, featuring works from public and private collections located across the country, some of which have not been seen for decades and were previously considered lost. Now Dig This! will feature artists including Melvin Edwards, Fred Eversley, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, John Outterbridge, Alonzo Davis, Dale Brockman Davis, Noah Purifoy, Betye Saar, and Charles White, presenting their creative output alongside parallel developments and teasing out the connections among individuals and groups of different ethnic origins. This multicultural component will bring to light a significant network of friendships and collaborations across racial lines, while underscoring the influence that African American artists had on the era's larger movements and trends."  MORE

Competition

Today I went to my first video performance seminar with John Pilson.  I am inspired by the work he shared with us and challenged by his questions.  After the screening segment of the class, students are encouraged to discuss current projects, show rough cuts and request feedback.  I didn't have anything prepared but I did show him 'kenya eats a cracker'.  As a frame of reference for my developing video work he mentioned Hennessy Youngman.  I countered with the incomparable Chuleta.  After seeing the video below John spoke of the importance of competition within communities.  During the conversation I realized that I do have a standing expectation that black artists have a "kumbaya" mentality. While this is generally the case, there is something important about the underlying sense of competition.  We are urged by our contemporaries to do better or differently and that urging need not be a gentle mention but a side eye shout against bullshit.

(I heart Chuleta.)

On Blast

At the prompting of one of my professors, I am exploring some of the complexities I've experienced relating to black artists within the art world.  Usually, I recount these episodes in whispered tones and furtive glances, to avoid upsetting the apple cart, but in the context of learning this feels unnecessarily sneaky.  So, I'm putting it on blast.  Critical discourse is a required element of this game and I figured I might as well include these observations as a part of the historical record.  Speaking of history- make sure you investigate creating an ephemera file at your local public library, interview your colleagues and embrace the power of the post (My address is 91 Howe Street #105 | New Haven, CT 06511).  Scholarly writing is beholden to research- don't be afraid to add your perspective to the mix.  Keep a record!

As I am constantly reading (and spending waaaay too much on magazines), I happened upon an interview with Clifford  Owens by Nick Stillman.  I am  slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am a performance artist (arrgh!).  I would much rather be a monumental sculptor or a painter, but alas, that is not my lot in life.  In fact, I believe that it is my general suspicion of the performance genre that ensures authenticity in my work. But I digress.  As I was reading I was struck by the passage below:

Clifford Owens: Absolutely.  Young artists have no sense of history.

Nick Stillman: Why, Cliff not enough teaching?

Clifford Owens:  (laughter) Not enough good teaching, perhaps.  But I’m not sure it even comes through academia.  Something else is happening right now with younger artists and their sense of history.  It’s as if what preceded them is of no value or never really happened.  I am always amazed when I talk to women artists in college who have no interest in feminist art.  There seems to be this frightening, alarming return to the modernist notion of the self contained, genius originator.  Young artists in particular don’t want to acknowledge antecedents.  I’m not really interested in recuperating history and I’m certainly not interested in romantic nostalgia for the past, but I’m very aware of the history.  I mean, painters are always painting against the history of painting.  Performance art seems so new, but there’s been so much development in the past 40 or 50 years.

BOMB Magazine | Number 117/ Fall 2011

First, many young artists have an overwhelming sense of history.  In fact, they are so historically astute that they speak of predecessors as adjectives- their own work reduced to a listing of references rather than the experiential origins of their practice. Having recently been introduced to this ARTSPEAK through my New Haven arrival, it seems more of a disservice,  as potential mentors jockey for position by identifying what a student's work looks like rather than questioning its intention and pushing  deeper and  beyond the reference.  I think we need to be interested in what all this access to information is doing to our relationship with other artists, other professionals, other human beings.  Through the internet we are able to easily access historical context.  With the click of a mouse we can read, see and hear a variety of enactments, but I wonder how all of this information  serves to maintain the boundaries that (performance) artists should be pushing against.  As a black female (performance) artist, my history is unconfined by "the past 40 or 50 years" that Mr. Owens alludes to.  It stretches into the proto-sphere of performance art engineered by luminaries such as Moms Mabley, Zora Neale Hurston and Father Divine.  

About a year ago I received a call from a young woman speaking on behalf of Mr. Owens.  She spoke of project he was working on that would serve as a living record of performance art created by black people.  I was delighted that he would spearhead such a important document and hopeful that I could contribute in some way that was consistent with my own practice.  I was informed that he was requesting scores from black artists that he would chose "at random" to perform at P.S.1.  How they got my contact information was never revealed, nor how Mr. Owens came to be aware of my work and when I suggested that I would feel more comfortable speaking directly with Mr. Owens, I was told about his busy schedule.  At the time, a stipulation of  my performance scores was that the performer(s) had to self-identify as female. While this excluded my possible inclusion in the re-performance aspect of the project, it seemed a worthwhile candidate for the historical record.  Ultimately, this reasoning was not in line with the project and the invitation was rescinded.  

Admittedly, my ego is on the healthier side, but the decision to put this experience 'on blast 'is borne out the comments excerpted above.  Reality reveals that history is being made moment by moment, and to make a blanket statement that "young artists have no sense of history" is just plain reckless- especially in light of the fact that Mr. Owens is an educator.  Generational striations are fictions that can prove divisive.  I've found it's the person-to-person interactions that provide the most supportive context for growth (in and out of the academy).   But what do I know?  I'm just a young artist with no sense of history :-)

Mom.

My blog entries have been sporadic as of late.  With so much to going on, it's been a challenge incorporating writing into my practice.  My mom would not approve.  In fact she often commented that I "had books inside me".  Spoken like a true bibliophile. 

Miss you.

(Rita Whitfield | February 13, 1951 - September 22, 2011)

Trading places...

Brain Crush #4: Thomas Gokey

"Thomas Gokey is working on selling his tuition debt from the SAIC through his project, Total Amount of Money Rendered in Exchange for a Masters of Fine Arts Degree to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pulped into Four Sheets of Paper."

The Great Sushi Caper

One of my classmates and I opted for a reasonably priced lunch at Miya's Sushi.  It's a New Haven mainstay with a wonderfully eclectic menu (I ordered 'The Italian Stallion Roll -  rare-fried tuna, new york mascarpone cheese, pistachios & orange marmalade).  As we were enjoying our meal outside, a man approached.  Debit card holders both, we thought he might be asking for cash, but he hovered , moved closer and without warning grabbed a handful of sushi off my plate.  He then mumbled 'goodbye' and sauntered away.  Stunned to flabbergasted we sat with our mouths open, feeling lucky that some more sinister did not go down. Two words: New Haven. 

Matt Keegan

I have a studio visit with Matt Keegan today,  so I browsed a few images to get a sense of his practice. Enjoy.

Real|Natural

"Black and white, striped", Kenya (Robinson), 2011

At the prompting of Jim Hodges I am pushing my exploration of the blondeconcept further.  During a recent conversation I realized that my questions about blondness aren't a matter of real vs fake but a dialogue between 'real' and 'natural'.  Marilyn Monroe is a real blonde.  In fact, she is probably the realest blonde in history, leading the cultural space occupied by Cinderella, Barbie and Goldilocks. The natural state of her hair color is a non-issue in the context our collective imagination. I believe that   this is the material accessed by individuals the world over and used as a kind of sympathetic magic.  Indeed, Marilyn is necessarily a realer blonde than even Grace Kelly (a Natural one), emphasizing  body modification as its own specific language. 

LINKS

Marilyn at 53DELUXE.com

It's a Blonde, Blonde, Blonde World

The Last Natural Blonde Is Likely To Be Born In Finland

Is It Real, Or Is It Clairol?

Domestic Exchange

"A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor.  Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems, and note services. The software can also be used for personal notetaking.  Wikis serve different purposes. Some permit control over different functions (levels of access). For example editing rights may permit changing, adding or removing material. Others may permit access without enforcing access control. Other rules can be imposed for organizing content.  Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work." "Wiki" (pronounced [ˈwiti] or [ˈviti]) is a Hawaiian word meaning "fast" or "quick"."

The School of Art Website is a veritable smorgasbord for visual communication.  Fully editable by students and faculty, I've been playing with the kinds of messages I can exchange with my Yale community.  It's a kind of direct-indirect communication that reads as a digital performance.  The internet is a powerful thing.

LINKS

• http://www.art.yale.edu/KaylaGibbons
• http://www.art.yale.edu/JoelHolmberg
• http://www.art.yale.edu/MatthewMuturiKioi
• http://www.art.yale.edu/ThomasHutton
• http://www.art.yale.edu/PeterMoran
• http://art.yale.edu/ErinShirreff
• http://art.yale.edu/JimHodges
• http://art.yale.edu/RobertStorr
• http://art.yale.edu/KenyaRobinson

Get It In Your Mind #33: Before|After

I dedicated this weekend to arranging my (physical) workspace.  I'm usually contemplating multiple projects and I've found that the more organized I am the more productive I become.  An interesting feature of this grad school experience is the notion of instability.  I still don't have a strategy for cooking meals or when I should wake up each morning or even a solid sense of my class schedule- but best believe I am working towards a resolution of these details.  For me, this sense of consistency in the mundane could be an anchoring mechanism to move effectively through the process. Discipline as ritual feels like it might positively influence the spontaneity and fearless required to do new things.

Stay tuned...

MAKE-UP: Critical Dialogue as Performance

"Tameka:  I've found that a public critical dialogue is missing between black female artists. In an effort to remedy this deficit I submit that we enact a performance detailing a conversation in the context of a shared practice. I believe this could be a rich addition to the historical record while functioning as rigorous piece of performance video."

Materials Listing

• Tameka Norris, Artist
• Kenya (Robinson), Artist
• 2 Make-up Artists
• 2 Reclining Chairs

The Colored Sacred Harp

"This slim, oblong book contains as much community effort, as much eccentricity, and as much rich material as any of the shape‑note hymn compilations it is designed to resemble. It has a layered and recursive form, in which various streams separate and converge: a biography, a personal memoir of the folk revival, a critical survey of scholarly literature on African American Sacred Harp singing, a generous selection of evocative photographs spanning the twentieth century, and a CD that ranks among the most valuable and carefully compiled collections of historical Sacred Harp recordings ever assembled. John Bealle's introduction plays the role of the traditional "rudiments of music" section of a shape‑note hymnal, providing a concise and sensitive history of Sacred Harp singing, its diverse adherents, and its intersections with the folk revival. Joe Dan Boyd's prologue prepares the reader to engage the main body of the book (which dates from 1969) as a document of "the eager, innocent spirit by which so many people engaged traditional culture at that time" (p. 24). Boyd's self‑awareness pervades the book and makes it a more complex work than most other celebratory folklore biographies.

In many respects, judge Jackson (1883‑1958) was much like other leading figures in the southern communities that sang from The Sacred Harp in the early twentieth century. He was born poor and rural, did agricultural work all his life, gained a patchwork music education from a variety of singing‑school teachers and friends, taught his own large family to sing, became a prosperous and charismatic cultural leader in his own community, and eventually compiled a shape-note tunebook that included some of his own compositions. This sort of life history is not uncommon in Sacred Harp circles and has long supported the master narrative of American self‑reliance, native ingenuity, and folk artisanship that has informed the reception of this kind of singing almost since the invention of shape-note notation.

But Judge Jackson's story is of special interest because he was African American‑the "black giant of white spirituals," as Boyd subtitled the folklore master's thesis on which this book is based. (With this title, Boyd made a wry commentary on George Pullen Jackson's unfortunate and persistent terminology for shape‑note singing, made famous by his book White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands [Chapel Hill, N.C., 1933],) Judge Jackson's own awareness of the race‑based claims and assumptions bound up with Sacred Harp history is evident from the title he chose for his hymn compilation: The Colored Sacred Harp. Jackson first had the book printed in 1934, funding it primarily with his own savings. The effort probably made him enemies, given that Alabama was deep in the Depression and those unsympathetic to his cause might have smelled a vanity project. Indeed, such enemies could also point to the fact that the book never quite achieved the level of recognition and general use that its compiler hoped. Among the greatest contributions made by Boyd's narrative is his detailed exploration of this anticlimax: why wasn't The Colored Sacred Harp more widely adopted? Boyd moves from the book's physical attributes to contextual social factors, confirming ethnomusicologist Doris Dyen's observation that the very existence of the book served a symbolic purpose apart from its function as a collection of music to be sung.

Boyd's fieldwork in Alabama began after Jackson's death, so he never met his "black giant." The story of his long relationship with Jackson's Wiregrass community is as important a document as his biography of Jackson. An "epilogue" that runs to half the length of the original thesis describes how the Wiregrass singers came to be recognized as national treasures, through performances alongside white Sacred Harp singers at the 1970 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife and the 1971 Montreal "Man and his World" exposition. Boyd's frank discussion of the tensions that arose between the black and white singers over competition for the crowd's attention, differences in style, and repertory choices, among other things‑is far more historically valuable than the typical romantic, celebratory accounts of such festivals. But this account also shows that the singers themselves shared the ideals of those celebrations of conflict‑free diversity and actively worked to find a basis for mutual respect. Boyd's work is a testament to the success of that effort."

KIRI MILLER
Brown University

Get It In Your Mind #33: Rural Studio

"The Rural Studio is a design-build architecture studio run by Auburn University which aims to teach students about the social responsibilities of the profession of architecture while also providing safe, well-constructed and inspirational homes and buildings for poor communities in rural west Alabama, part of the so-called "Black Belt". MORE