The "Black Artist As Activist" Exhibit Opening Reception Sunday, January 31st, 2010 4PM - 6PM Brooklyn, New York

Our Children’s Journey
by Kevin E. Cole

OPENING:
Sunday, January 31th, 2010
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
The art exhibit is on view through Sunday, March 28th, 2010

WHERE:
Corridor Gallery
334 Grand Avenue
(Between Gates and Greene Avenues)
Brooklyn, NY 11238
718.230.5002
GOOGLE MAP

ARTISTS: Regina Agu, Andrea Chung, Kevin E. Cole, Sheryl Renee Dobson, Khalid Kodi, Zoraida Lopez, Joanna Mcfarland, Jasmine Murrell, Shani Peters, Terrance Sanders, Malik Seneferu, Ademola Olugebefola, and Derick Cross, among others.

ABOUT: Working with a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College partnered with the Danny Simmons Corridor Gallery and the National Conference of Artists New York to bring forth a multitude of various voices and mediums from around the country to raise awareness of the ways in which Black artists use art as a tool of transformation and liberation for themselves and the larger global community. The exhibit at Corridor Gallery will feature artists who use various media including collage, painting, printmaking and photography to depict images that represent the artist as activist and art as an instrument for social change.

# # #

About The Center for Black Literature (CBL) at Medgar Evers College/CUNY

Founded in 2003, the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College was established to expand, broaden, and enrich the public’s knowledge and aesthetic appreciation of the value of black literature, to continue the tradition and legacy of the National Black Writers Conference, to serve as a voice, mecca, and resource for black writers, and to study the literature of people from the African Diaspora. As part of its mission, the Center also collaborates with educational, cultural and community-based organizations. It is the only Center devoted to this in the country and also serves as a vehicle for nurturing and cultivating the critical reading and writing habits of a cross-generation of readers and writers, particularly those who are in school, and for sponsoring programs which demonstrate the Center’s commitment to nurturing and supporting emerging writers.. Among its major programs are the National Black Writers Conference, the Re-Envisioning Our Lives through Literature High School Collaborative Project, the North Country Institute and Retreat for Writers of Color, the Writers on Writing Radio Program, and the Elder African American Writers Workshop.

About Corridor Gallery

Corridor Gallery (Clinton Hill, Brooklyn) is a core program of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization founded in 1995 by brothers Russell, Danny and Joseph “Rev. Run” Simmons. Corridor Gallery is dedicated to providing exhibition opportunities to the emerging artistic community including artists, curators and writers primarily living and working in Brooklyn and the surrounding areas. Since its establishment in 1996, the gallery has supported a unique constellation of artists and creative practices—experimental ventures in performance, visual art, and curatorial work and has exhibited the work of hundreds of non-commercially represented artists. The gallery serves the local community by hosting special events aimed at initiating a dialogue on matters relating to contemporary art. In addition, Corridor Gallery is also home to Rush Education Programs that expose and immerse disadvantaged urban youth in the study and practice of contemporary art. The exhibitions and educational programs of the galleries are sponsored in part by a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts and are free and open to the public. In 2008, the Gallery was awarded the Mayor’s Award for Arts and Culture from the department of Cultural Affairs for its pioneering programming.

About The National Conference of Artists – NY

The National Conference of Artists (NCA) was founded as The National Conference of Negro Artists at a gathering on March 28-29, 1959 in Dean Sage Hall of Atlanta University during the annual exhibition of Black art held by the famed artist and educator Hale Woodruff. The organization was later renamed the National Conference of Artists with chapters in many of the major Black cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Birmingham, Dallas, Los Angeles, Boston, Richmond and Rochester, NY. Through exhibitions and cultural programs, NCA's goal is to inform, train, and motivate those in the arts to make their talents a force for social change, to help provide employment opportunities, and to reach the general public in a way that will move them in a positive direction through various programs. The New York chapter of NCA was established in 2006.

Contact: Lea Byrd of LEABYRD PR at 917.319.5449 • leabyrd[at]gmail.com


UPDATE (TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND, 2010):

I went to the opening celebration of this Black art on Sunday and FOLKS... the place was freakin' packed wall-to-wall with just a sea of Black folks. It caught me completely off guard and considering the cold weather, too. But yo, we definitely showed up to support and it was great to see. The art pieces and art installations were FUCKING POWERFUL. I don't think anything has ever jarred me more in all my years of going to see Black art exhibitions than seeing the DARFUR DIRTY LAUNDRY art installation in particular. I have pictures of this installation below but the pics don't do the installation justice as you have to be at the art gallery to experience it for yourself.

The Black Artist As Activist Exhibit will continue to be on display the Black owned Corridor Gallery in Brooklyn, New York until March 28th, 2010!

WHERE:
Corridor Gallery
334 Grand Avenue
(Between Gates and Greene Avenues)
Brooklyn, NY 11238
718.230.5002
GOOGLE MAP

Check out the pictures I took of Sunday's opening day below. I apologize in advance for the lack of quality regarding the pictures. I didn't think to bring my good camera gear with me and all I had was my Palm Treo 700P camera phone and it takes crummy pictures with no flash to say the least.

PLEASE GO AND SUPPORT
THIS INCREDIBLE ART EVENT!

GET ON THEIR MAILING LIST!

AND LEAVE A DONATION BEFORE YOU LEAVE, TOO!

Click on any of the images to enlarge them...

The Art of Malik Seneferu

Artist Malik Seneferu Explaining To Onlookers
The Inspiration Behind His Exhibited Work
(About Haiti) That He Created in the Mid 1990s

The Art of Malik Seneferu (Website)

The Art of Malik Seneferu (Website)

The Director of Corridor Gallery Addressing The Black Family
And Explaining The Programs Of The Gallery
And Different Upcoming Events

Darfur's Dirty Laundry
Art Installation
(Painting Hung On The Wall)

Darfur's Dirty Laundry
Art Installation
(On The Floor)

YES,
This Is A Simulation Of Victims/Dead Bodies In Darfur

Because It Was A Packed House, It Was Interesting
How We Were All Being Careful Not To Step
On The Installation As People Either Looked On
Or Walked Around To See Other Art!
THIS WAS POWERFUL BEYOND WORDS!!

This Tribute To Sean Bell Was So Beautiful.
I Couldn't Help But Think How Somber This Installation Looked
In Comparison to Some Of The Other And More Edger Art Pieces

Sean Bell Was Gunned Down & Executed By
New York City Police Officers

The Faces of Sean Bell And His Wife Nicole Paultre Bell
SO BEAUTIFUL!!

The
"It's 10PM. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE?",
The Bullet, And The Syringe Are Powerful Symbols
On This Clock Installation Art

A Crowded And Packed Corridor Gallery

I Never Got This Sistah's Name But She Is A Spoken Word Artist.
SHE WAS AWESOME!
I Was At A Documentary Film Shoot The Night Before
At A Barbershop In Greenpoint, Brooklyn
And She Was An Invited Guest.
It Was Nice To Bump Into Her Twice Within 24 Hours

A Bite Of My Apple Tree Play Was Perfomed

Malik Seneferu's Pan-African Fist Artwork

Tomorrow's Toussaints by Kalamu ya Salaam A Poem About Haiti

Tomorrow's Toussaints
By Kalamu ya Salaam

this is Haiti, a state
slaves snatched from surprised masters,
its high lands, home of this
world's sole successful
slave revolt, Haiti, where
freedom has flowered and flown
fascinating like long necked
flamingoes gracefully feeding
on snails in small pinkish
sunset colored sequestered ponds

despite the meanness
and meagerness of life
eked out of eroding soil
and from exploited urban toil, there
is still so much beauty here in this
land where the sea sings roaring a shore
and fecund fertile hills lull and roll
quasi human in form

there is beauty here
in the unyielding way
our people,
colored charcoal, and
banana beige, and
shifting subtle shades
of ripe mango, or strongly
brown-black, sweet
as the suck from
sun scorched staffs
of sugar cane,
have decided
we shall survive
we will live on

a peasant pauses
clear black eyes
searching far out over the horizon
the hoe motionless, suspended
in the midst
of all this shit and suffering
forced to bend low
still we stop and stand
and dream and believe

we shall be released
we shall be released
for what slaves
have done
slaves can do

and that begets
the beauty

slaves can do

ERYKAH BADU Announces 5th Studio Album: New Amerykah, Part II: Return of the Ankh Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Erykah Badu's New Album
New Amerykah, Part II: Return of the Ankh
Coming Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

soultracks.com

(January 21, 2010, New York, NY) - Universal Motown Records multi-platinum-selling, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter-actress ERYKAH BADU announced via Twitter that she will release her fifth studio album, New Amerykah, Part II: Return of the Ankh, on March 30, 2010. The new album is the singer's hotly anticipated follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2008 disc, New Amerykah, Part I: 4th World War.

In contrast to New Amerykah, Part I: 4th World War, which was digitally produced and political in tone, New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh features lush live instrumentation and taps into Badu's emotional side by thematically focusing on romance and relationships. "With Part I, I was standing at an apex, looking at what was going on around me politically, socially, and economically," Badu explained. "With Part II, I'm hovering over me, looking at what's going on inside of me."

New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh features contributions from some of the most talented, groundbreaking, underground producers and engineers in the hip-hop game, including Grammy winners 9th Wonder and James Poyser, eclectic soul singer Bilal, and the late J Dilla. "We used a lot of analog instruments-harps, strings, drums, piano, and even a Theremin-to give the album that sonic feel," said Badu. "There's a strong undercurrent of bottom, a rumbling to these songs that feels good to me. It feels like a hug."

The press is already raving about New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh, one of the most anticipated albums of 2010. The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog calls it "a throwback to her 1997 debut, ‘Baduizm,' with a more acoustic feel" while Vibe.com says, "Badu delivers an album that offers the emotional highs, lows and maddening complexities of being involved in a romantic relationship." Additionally, Okayplayer.com writes, "The album is dope," and Suite903.com declares, "The new album is beyond amazing."

ERYKAH BADU, a Dallas native, emerged in 1997 with her masterpiece debut album, Baduizm, as a primal force of nature connecting old school soul with contemporary R&B. The album garnered her numerous award nominations, including two Grammys (Best Female R&B Vocal, Best R&B Album) and multiple top spots on critics' Best-Of-The-Year Lists. In 2000, she followed up with the critically acclaimed platinum-selling album, Mama's Gun. In 2003, the EP World Wide Underground was awarded Gold certification.

Track Listing for New Amerykah, Part II: Return of the Ankh:

# 1. "20 Feet Tall" Produced by Erykah Badu and 9th Wonder.
# 2. "Window Seat" Produced by Erykah Badu and James Poyser. Featuring Ahmir "?uestove" Thompson (drums), Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner (bass), James Poyser (keys), Kirsten Agnesta (harp).
# 3. "Agitation" Produced by Erykah Badu and Shafiq Husayn of SA-RA Creative Partners.
# 4. "Get Money" Produced by Erykah Badu and Karieem Riggins (drums), Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner (bass), James Poyser (keys), Tommy Trajlio (guitar), Mike "Chav" Chavarria (mooger fooger). Contains an interpolation of "Can't Turn Me Away," by Sylvia Strippling.
# 5. "Don't Be Long" Produced by Erykah Badu and Taarak.
# 6. "Love" Produced by Erykah Badu and J Dilla.
# 7. "Umm Hmm" Produced by Erykah Badu and Madlib.
# 8. "Fall in Love" Produced by Erykah Badu and Karieem Riggins. Contains a sample of "Intimate Friends" by Eddie Kendricks.
# 9. "Incense" (Instrumental) Produced by Erykah Badu and Madlib featuring Kirsten Agnesta (harp).
# 10. "Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 1) (Undercover Over-Lover)" Produced by Erykah Badu featuring James Poyser (keys).
# 11. "Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 2)" Produced by Erykah Badu and Georgia Ann Muldrow.
# Bonus Web-Only Track: "Jump In The Air," featuring Lil Wayne and Bilal Produced by Erykah Badu, RC Williams and Jahborn. Contains an interpolation of "Hydraulic Pump" by Parliament Funkadelic.

When Doves Cry: The 2010 Haiti Earthquake By Dredlocks Tree (My Next Door Neighbor On Blogger)

Hey Black Family,

I'm linking this particular blog entry to my Blogger neighbor and FRIEND, Dredlocks Tree. I have no words to say except read his entry and while looking over the pictures.

Click the pic above to link over to his blog entry:
When Doves Cry: The 2010 Haiti Earthquake

Peace!
ROD

Kehinde Wiley: Black Light (A Truly OVER SIZED Behemoth Coffee Table Book) Plus Videos Of Kehinde, The Artist

The Front And Black Cover To Black Light
Man!! GOTTA LOVE THOSE LIPS!!!
JUST A BEAUTIFUL BRUTHA!

Hey Black Family,

I'm back with another entry on African-American artist Kehinde Wiley. The other latest book he has published is called Black Light which came out less than a year a go (around May 2009). Also, after the pictures of Kehinde's work below I have a handful of YouTube videos and you can get more ifo about Kehinde and his work process which is great. I WISH I WAS TALENTED PAINTER AND I COULD ASK SOME CUTE ASS BLACK MEN TO MODEL AND POSE SO I COULD DRAW THEM LATER ON. LOL!

The Black Light Book (center) Is Really Big In Comparison
To Kehinde's Other Published Books

First, let me say that Black Light is a huge book that measures approximately 12.5" wide x 15.25" in height. YES! A behemoth of a book that is truly a coffee table book.

As the name Black Light implies, a good portion or most of the book is dominated in black. The front and back of the hard cover is black with colorful leaves/flowers flowing at the top and bottom edges of the book. The dust jacket which surrounds the book is cleverly shorter by a 1/4" inch on the top and on the bottom, too. By doing this you can see the effect of the flowers flowing from the dust jacket and onto the blackness of the hard cover book itself. Really, really nice in my opinion. You have to hold the book in your possession to really appreciate this little artistic nuance. My photo above doesn't do it justice.

The black motif continues inside with all the essays type-set with a really nice silver text against a semi-matte or perhaps semi-gloss black pages. The book and pages are bound with high quality. You can see that the pages are bound with that tough string you would see on certain quality books and not bound with glue where it would loose its adhesion over time.

The meat of the book itself which graces Kehinde's work is magnificent!! The difference this time around with this particular work of art is that Kehinde did his usual due diligence of photographing the young blood Black males. But instead of painting portraits from the photograph he takes of hos models, he actually uses the actual photographs this time around and superimposes his signature flowers with the photos. I haven't read any part of the book's essays yet, so I don't know if the book explains the process of merging the photography of the male models with his painted flowers. (Adobe Photoshop perhaps?).

This quite frankly is Kehinde's best book of art by far because of the life like models using real photography, the shear size of the book itslef, the overall beautiful presentation of the black themed motif and the PRICE of the book which goes anywhere from $50 to $75!! LOL! TRUST ME!! IT'S WORTH EVERY SINGLE PENNY PAID!!

One of the most STRIKING things I LOVE about Kehinde's work in Black Light is that most if not all of the models' lips stand out with a glow of applied lip balm gloss. To me this accentuates the bruthaz in this book that much more. It's like I really wanna reach and out and KISS some of these bruthaz. Subjectively speaking, one could say it might adds a feminine quality to the bruthaz which breaks down those stereotypes or that "box" of what it is to be a man, manhood and/or masculinity. And there ain't nuthin' wrong with that! Yet, I really contend that the glossy lips are so pronounced that I suspect the lip balm gloss is another play on light... as in black light. Ultimately, I find it DAYUM sexy as all hell to me!!

So overall an excellent book which comes pre-shrink wrapped so that when you buy your copy you'll have it in mint condition.

So, enjoy the rest of the pics below and read a summary by the book's publisher. Also, I have included 5 different videos below of Kehinde, his work and work process with links to Amazon.com and his website where the books are available, too.

OK, NOW ONTO SOME BEAUTIFUL EYE CANDY! HAVE FUN...

The Portrait Is One Of My TOP FAVORITES In
Black Light

Brutha Man's Hat Style And Colors
Accents This Piece Quite Nicely

Black Light
Book Description

Los Angeles native and New York-based visual artist Kehinde Wiley has firmly situated himself within art history's portrait painting tradition. As a contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists--including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, and others--Wiley engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic, and sublime in his representation of urban black and brown men found throughout the world. By applying the visual vocabulary and conventions of glorification, wealth, prestige, and history to subject matter drawn from the urban fabric, Wiley makes his subjects and their stylistic references juxtaposed inversions of each other, imbuing his images with ambiguity and provocative perplexity.

In Black Light, his first monograph, Wiley's larger-than-life figures disturb and interrupt tropes of portrait painting, often blurring the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation and the critical portrayal of masculinity and physicality as it pertains to the view of black and brown young men. The models are dressed in their everyday clothing, most of which is based on far-reaching Western ideals of style, and are asked to assume poses found in paintings or sculptures representative of the history of their surroundings. This juxtaposition of the "old" inherited by the "new"--who often have no visual inheritance of which to speak--immediately provides a discourse that is at once visceral and cerebral in scope.

Without shying away from the socio-political histories relevant to the subjects, Wiley's heroic images exhibit a unique modern style that awakens complex issues which many would prefer remain mute.

Black Light
Hardcover: 56 pages
Publisher: powerHouse Books (May 26, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1576874869
ISBN-13: 978-1576874868
Product Dimensions: 15.1 x 12.2 x 0.6 inches

Buy @ Amazon.com







Buy From Kehinde Wiley Studios Official Website
(Look under PUBLICATIONS)



About the Author

Kehinde Wiley received his MFA from Yale University in 2001. Shortly after, he became an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He is represented by Deitch Projects, New York, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, and Roberts and Tilton, Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of many museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York, the Miami Art Museum, Miami, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.

Kehinde Wiley on The TODAY Show

Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley: World Stage >Africa

Kehinde Wiley On MUSE

Kehinde Wiley at Jeffrey Deitch, NYC (Nov 2008)





Check Out Kehinde Wiley's Official Website
(Click The Logo)

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Sun, Feb 14 at 7pm

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Ticket Prices: $79, 99, 125

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Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > BRAZIL A New Book Release

Hey Black Family,

I was window browsing at Amazon.com and discovered that Kehinde Wiley's latest book of art The World Stage: Brazil just came out. I have been waiting for this book for some time and about to place an order for it.

Kehinde Wiley is a young African-America male artist whose body of work encapsulate young men of African descent from around the world. I just discovered this brutha'z work a year or so ago. And believe me when I tell you, you cannot appreciate brutha Kehind's work until you see it in an art gallery. I mean the epic scale of his paintings are ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!! The average painting is about 20 feet long (landscape or portrait).

A little over a year ago on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 I put together a social event called BIG ROD's Brotherhood Gathering / Social Outing -> Kehinde Wiley: DOWN for Black SGL bruthaz at the Deitch Projects Art Gallery venue in Manhattan. I figured it'd be a great way for bruthaz to meet one another around the subject of art instead of bruthaz meeting at the same ol' tired club and bar scenes!! It was a small gathering, but we had a great time and we went around the gallery and discussed a lot of the different pieces of Kehinde's art and what it meant to us personally. I had so much FUN and glad bruthaz came out for that. A very different and refreshing social gathering for Black same gender loving men.

I LOVE Africentric art of the Diaspora and as a result of seeing the art exhibit twice I became a big fan of Kehinde's work. I try to pick up as many books as possible with his published works of art! I LOVE his choice of models which are just regular guys from different neighborhoods from around the world. I find a lot of his choice of men attractive and some of the works homo-erotic in nature; on he other hand some of his paintings are poignant in their portrayal of the demise of Black men. A lot of his works have eurocentric slant to them via some settings or stature because Kehinde emulates a lot of historically famous poses or settings; thus, he puts men of African descent in a context a lot of audiences of his work are not used to seeing and it creates an interesting dichotomy or juxtaposition.

So, if you haven't seen Kehinde's work in an art gallery, please keep an eye out for an exhibit in your area, or if you cna travel to a neighboring town or city, it is well, well worth it in my opinion. The brutha simply INCREDIBLE and is such a talent! Also, don't forget to pick up Kehinde Wiley's latest book of art Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > Brazil The price is not a back-breaker and costs about $26.00. Be qool y'all!

ROD


Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > Brazil

Book Description

This volume includes a selection of 22 new portrait paintings from Kehinde Wiley's multinational World Stage series, which has included Africa, China and India in the past and now moves on to Brazil. Immersing himself in the local culture of Rio de Janeiro, Wiley incorporates the people, history and aesthetic of the city in each of his monumental male portraits. His models, chosen from the favela slums, reflect historically significant public sculptures found within the city. Oversize tropical flowers in full bloom, appropriated from Brazilian textiles, inundate the work with saturated, brightly hued colors suggestive of Brazilian exoticism. Likening African-descended, young Brazilian males to canonical figures from Western art history as well as Brazilian public monuments, Wiley renders masculinity both august and noble. Text in English and Portuguese.

Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Roberts & Tilton (January 31, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1427613737
ISBN-13: 978-1427613738
Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches

This Is One Of My TOP, TOP FAVORITES!!!!!
From Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > BRAZIL,
This Is A Very Sensual Portrait
And Portrays Men of African Descent
In A Way In Which You Don't See
In The Mainstream Arts.
A REAL BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF ART!!

Definitely Another Favorite!!!
Brutha Kehinde Is So MAGNIFICENT!!

LOVE THIS PIECE, TOO!!

Kehinde's Signature Staple Is His Use of FLOWERS
In Most Of His Works