Category: black history
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Traveling without a Map: Navigating Invitations and Provocations
Another year in the books. January 1, 2022 started just like 2021. I made gumbo and black eyed peas, watched the Twilight Zone Marathon…then I got to business clipping and pasting images, creating my vision board to chart my course for the year. However, there was one notable omission from my annual plan; I didn’t…
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Artist Vivian Browne and “Little Men”
“Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. A decent man apologizes not to save face, not to win a vote. He apologizes, and genuinely, to repair and acknowledge the harm done, so that we…
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We Beg Your Pardon?
They call it “due process” and some people are overdue We beg your pardon, America Somebody said, “Brotherman gonna break a window, gonna steal a hubcap, gonna smoke a joint, a brotherman gonna go to jail” The man who tried to steal America is not in jail “Get caught with a nickel bag, brotherman. Get…
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“Give Me Some Moments”: Slow Looking with Lorna Simpson at Hauser & Wirth
We’re living in a time of odd juxtapositions. We’re disconnected from our physical lives while we remain constantly connected to each other virtually. We hoard toilet paper yet remain disastrously wasteful. We covet time, but bemoan boredom. Before Covid-19, we longed for the quiet solitude that comes with less crowded streets, remote working, and quality…
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A Collective Constellation at Art + Practice
Art + Practice’s latest show, Collective Constellation: Selections from the Eileen Harris Norton Collection is an exhibition that I always needed to see, I just didn’t realize why until now. Over the last several years, I’ve committed the month February to posting Artist a Day profiles where Black artists are highlighted and celebrated. In 2017…
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Dawoud Bey: An American Project
I miss museums. There’s something about hearing the faint echoes of hushed conversations within galleries while the sounds of loose hardwood planks slowly creak with each step as I walk through an exhibit. It’s comforting. I miss the carefully engineered skylights and windows that let the right amount of light in and give me a…
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Artist a Day: Alison Saar
During Frieze week there were two booths that I regret not seeing in person. Alison Saar’s booth hosted by L.A. Louver was one of them. Her solo presentation, Chaos in the Kitchen featured a series of sculptures and prints by the artist that pay homage to the sanctity of the kitchen as a place of…
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Artist a Day: Mary Lovelace O’Neal
“What I wanted to learn to do as a young person was to make a really good painting, a really tough painting…to make art that had balls; not so much that it would change the world, but to have the balls to be beautiful.” Mary Lovelace O’Neal Mary Lovelace O’Neal grew up in the South…
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Artist a Day: Carmen Neely
“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the f— on.” Tupac Shakur Much easier said than done, but there’s power in the ability to let go.…
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Artist a Day: Jordan Casteel
On the heels of Jordan Casteel’s 2019 show, The Practice of Freedom, the artist is celebrating her first solo museum show in New York this month at the New Museum. Within Reach examines the evolution of Casteel’s career where the subjects of her portraits are reflections of the surroundings that shaped her oeuvre. Her latest…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 