Seven lots donated by contemporary artists of African descent moved briskly atSwann Galleries Auction House on February 17th. These works were sold as part of the bi-annual African American Fine Art Sale. Swann Galleries is the only major auction house to regularly present sales of this material.

 

Nicholas D. Lowry, President of Swann Galleries  Photo by Amanda Adams-Louis

The catalogue featured a page on the SCAIII Scholarship Fund mission and political career and legacy of Chuck Allen III. Works by new and highly prized and noted artists: Arnold Kemp, Nayland Blake, Patricia Coffie, Kalup Linzy, Jacolby Satterwhite, Dana Shea and Xaviera Simmons generously supported the fund by donating work to benefit the endowment.

Photos by Jeanine Boubli

Pearl Albino, Xenobia Bailey and Katharine Umsted

Jacolby Satterwhite and Patricia Coffie

Held February 12, 2009 over 100 persons enjoyed the hors'deouvres and wine at Swann Galleries Auction House while viewing the 169 lots of artwork to be sold on February 17th. Seven works were donated by emerging contemporary African and African American artists to benefit the Senator Chuck Allen III Scholarship Fund, a fund aiding students of color in the tri-state area who will study accounting, law and public and urban policy as the late Chuck Allen did having served 26 years in New Haven, CT. and CT. state wide politics.

Sur Rodney Sur, Tod Roulette and Michael Sellinger

Allen died February 2008 after a long battle with cancer, the memorial scholarship attempts to preserves his civic legacy while inspiring college bound youth.

For more information about the scholarship or how to contribute at the St. Philip's Federal Credit Union,please visit their website or contact  or contact the scholarship's administrator .  SCAIII Scholarship Fund is a nonprofit 501C3 entity under Democracy Builders, 207 West 133rd Street, NY NY 10030

Reviewed by Antoine Craigwell, Sr. Correspondent

(New York, NY - Feb 11, 2009) - Capitalizing on new media and trends to expand and increase viewers beyond the confines of a room with four walls, a photography artist uses his Web page on the World Wide Web as his own gallery to exhibit some of his creations.


 

Wings of Glory  -  Black is Beautiful, Gay is Good!

After trying unsuccessfully to obtain gallery space to show his work and realizing that he could attract more attention by showing his work online, a Brooklyn, NY-based photographer modified a free Web-hosting site to put up photographs in an exhibition titled, Black is Beautiful, Gay is Good, as a commemoration of Black History Month, for the world to see. A self-taught Haitian-born American photo-artist cum photojournalist, Ocean Morisset, 39, represents in his online exhibition 25 photographs of different views of Black gay life.   Ocean Morisset He captures and provides contextual explanations for each of the photographs which depict: lesbian and male couples at gay rights protests and summer celebrations; cultural Kwanzaa and award celebrations; frozen for all time single Black gay men and women entertaining crowds or standing silently in grief, holding on to images of loved ones, Dwan Prince and Rashawn Brazell, killed by hatred and ignorance; images of intimate embraces, held and shared, between Black male and female couples, emphasizing the comfort each feels with the other; and portraits of Black men who have been influential in their own way, in society, from the Black Elder series, Bill Stewart, Anthony Jenkins, and Eugene Compson.

Gay Youth  -  Black is Beautiful, Gay is Good!

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By James Hipps
Gay Agenda

Recently I had the very honored pleasure of speaking with Jerris Madison. Jerris is a self-described “clean with a twist,” photographer whose work is built on a foundation of childhood admiration mixed with a passion for visual creativity. With contributions to The Advocate Magazine, Jensen Atwood Calendar , KRAVE Magazine (Former Co-Publisher) and Swirl Magazine among others, and a client list that includes Brian White, Jensen Atwood, Tavis Smiley, Rockmond Dunbar, Henry Simmons, Karamo Brown and Pepsi – Jerris Madison keeps his style simple and low key, focusing on what he feels to be one of the most important factors of a successful shoot…LIGHTING. “I improved my technique greatly from lessons with my photography teacher, Robert Rostick. Without him, I would be lost.


 

Currently, Jerris is the Publisher and Creative Director of Obvious Magazine. Obvious Magazine appeals to the woman searching for a deeper understanding of the male psyche. Obvious Magazine, a flip publication, appeals to the man wanting to know the motives behind that woman’s search. He also has a blog talk radio show and works as a wardrobe stylist for editorials and red carpet events. Jerris is comfortable enough with himself and doesn’t take sexuality into consideration when he works with clients. He has many GLBT friends and is an advocate for equality for all people. Jerris is a true “ally” of the GLBT community as well as a positive influence on all he comes in contact with. The GLBT community is extremely fortunate to have people like Jerris who value people for what they contribute to the world, and doesn’t discriminate against people based upon individual differences.

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By Fashion Correspondent, Rudy Reed

What is the first thing that tempts you to pick up that unfamiliar book or magazine? What is a key ingredient that lures us to watch a television shows or a movie? If you guessed imagery, you are the winner of the prize.

I for one am very guilty of watching films or flipping through magazines without even thinking of the eye candy's creator. Shame on me, shame on us all, that we seldom recognize those who take the time to deliver us such delightful stimuli for our eyes.


  

I first came to know Michael R. Moore on myspace, and although his profile was set to private at the time, the bold profile picture that sat before me (which practically jumped off the screen), enticed me wanting to see more. I promptly requested him as a friend, and within minutes, I was instantly granted access into the unknown. I had stepped into a surreal magical world not knowing what image to focus on first.

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By Raymont Anderson

Hear ye hear ye.. !! Artists and art enthusiasts of all ages!

All ye who are artists, aspire to be artists, are closeted artists friends and family of artsist!. . . OK, All of you!!

Time for you to easel on down the road to Philadelphia's Townson University.

What do you mean why?

Well for one thing it's Philly, the city of brotherly love!

Secondly, the location of the event is Temple University

 

Thirdly, and most importantly is The October Gallery of Philadelphia will be hosting the 23rd Annual Philadelphia International Art Expo at Liacouras Center located on North Broad Street on the campus of Temple University November 7, 8 & 9, 2008.
Artist and GBM community member G. Allen Meekins would like you to be aware that the Expo will provide you an opportunity to meet and greet the many African American artist who are on hand during the Art Expo such as Charles Bibbs, Annie Lee, Sidney Carter and Larry "Poncho" Brown. The expo will all be host to a myriad of other artistic forms of expression, such as poetry. Not only will there will be plenty of opportunities for you to meet artists, to view and admire the art, but you will have ample opportunity to support the art community by buying art for self and others. there will also be music art auctions, a health pavilion, a VIP suite, programs for children and various forms of entertainment the entire weekend.
So as you can see there will be plenty for all to see, hear, and do So come one, come ALL to the the 23rd Annual Philadelphia International Art Expo. . . Looking forward to seeing you there! You'll be glad you did! For more information go to: the October Gallery at www.octobergallery.com/gallery1.htm Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. ~André Gide

 

By Antoine Craigwell. Sr. Correspondent

New York, NY - Originality, ingenuity, creativeness, inspiration from life, versatility and difference, and longevity as artists better describe the works of over 300 artists and 40 galleries represented at the 5th Annual Art Off The Main exhibition held from October 2 to 5 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea.

 

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For four of the five years Art Off The Main exhibition was held at the Puck Building, but this year, due to renovations, the exhibition was relocated to the artsy Chelsea exhibition gallery on West 19th Street.

Curator and producer of the exhibition, Loris Crawford says that prior to holding this type of exhibition, not many opportunities existed for artists of color to show their work, and with hundreds of art fairs in the U.S., Art Off The Main is one of the only shows to fill that void. This year is special, she adds, due to the large number of galleries that have entered the show, including the National Gallery of Nigeria, galleries from Mexico and Cuba and from across the U.S. compared to previous exhibitions. On its opening night, the exhibition attracted more than 400 guests.

"The exhibitors, as studios, collectives and individual artists brought their work to show that they can be taken just as seriously as and be placed alongside other mainstream artists. Like in all events, a person will find work that is exceptional and others as average. One of the things we endeavor to maintain in the show is in the quality of the work which we select by looking at the artists we invite to participate,"

says Crawford who is also the curator and owner of Savacou Gallery. Featured artists at the exhibition included Michael Escoffrey, the Caribbean Cultural Center, bronze sculptures "They Are Waiting" by Nnamdi Okonkwo Studios, Dick Griffin Studios, En Foco, Inc., Diaspora Now/Caribbean Arts, Arte Inversion Galleria of Puerto Rico, and the International Cultural Exchange.

An artist, Lawrence Graham-Brown, originally from Jamaica, who lives in New Jersey, and who has been an artist for over 20 years, says his acceptance of his sexual orientation and expression in his work is without attachment to labels of himself. He recalled that when he first showed his work in Jamaica, he received a lot of resistance from lawyers and from the board of directors of the National Gallery. "My style is based on race. I work within the themes of race, gender, class and sexuality, using mediums such as mixed collage which include images of people, post cards, feathers and found objects," says Graham-Brown. One of his signature pieces, done between 2006 and 2007 and titled "Fuck Off With The Beast Of Burden," is a mixed media collage oil on canvass with laser prints bordering the image of a man copulating with another in chains and drawn in black lines on an all white background; employing a minimalist perspective and simplicity with his work. The inspiration for this piece, he says, stems from his knowledge of the Black man who is relegated to a life of servitude and a beast of burden and is sexually abused from behind by a representation of a white man, the exploiter.

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SOMARTS Annual Day of the Dead Exhibit

Day of the Dead in a Time of Change
Saturday, October 11th to November 4th

By Susan Matthews

SAN FRANCISCO - Casper Banjo was an important member of the Oakland art establishment. An African American artist in his 70s, he had attended the San Francisco Art Institute, had exhibited widely, and was being considered for inclusion at the Smithsonian institution.

 

Casper was a dear friend. He. validated and supported the work of fellow artists. "We were all shocked and heart broken when we learned that Casper was shot and killed by the Oakland Police near his home in East Oakland on March 14, 2008. He was waving a fake gun. Casper is one of 106 murder victims in Oakland in 2008," said Susan Matthews.
Susan Matthews, Oakland artist and friend of Casper, has done a large portrait of him with his signature brick wall behind him. The painting will hang above a traditional Cuban altar for the dead as part of the annual Day of the Dead Exhibition at SOMARTS, a South of Market art gallery in San Francisco. (934 Brannan St. between 8th and 9th, SF.) Anyone who knew Casper is invited to contribute a memento for the altar, or a piece for the wall. Letters, flowers, artwork, or statements are welcome. The installation will celebrate Casper's life, morn his death, and bring attention to the continuing violence in Oakland.
Casper Banjo, of Oakland, California was born in Memphis in 1937. After obtaining an Associates Degree at Laney College he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute where he subsequently taught. He began his art career as a printmaker.
His prints have been exhibited nationally and internationally at locations such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition, The John McEnroe Gallery, the Venezuela Second Biennial Del Grabado de American and a traveling exhibition of the Gong Gallery in Lagos, Nigeria.
He also participated in the Very Special Art Gallery's African-American Artistry, the California Society of Printmaker's Exhibition at the Triton Museum, The Oakland Museum Collector's Gallery and the Laguna Arts Museum Prints and Painting Show. His work can also be found in numerous private collections. Mr. Banjo traveled extensively throughout the world, including West Africa, Upper Volta, Benin, Jos, Zaria, Lagos Nigeria, Ghana, Ife, Kano and Ibadan.

Tennessee artist, James McKissic, is having a solo art show entitled, Root Workers and Railroad Tracks, at the Chattanooga African American Museum (CAAM). The CAAM is located at 200 East Martin Luther King Blvd in Chattanooga, TN.

McKissic, a 2007 recipient of the Four Bridges Art Festival Emerging Artist Scholarship, is exhibiting 17 paintings. Most recently he has exhibited his work at UNUM Corporate Headquarters and WTCI PBS Studios as part of the Association for Visual Artists Corporate Lending Program. He also shows regularly at the Fine Line Gallery in Atlanta’s Grant Park and Outloud Books in Nashville, TN. Mckissic has show his work at Nashville Black Pride as well and sells to collectors throught the region.

“With this show at the Chattanooga African American Museum, I want to let people see what I’ve been doing over the past couple of years. I chose the title Root Workers and Railroad Tracks because so much of my work and my aesthetic are based on my experiences as a southern, African American, gay man.”

Three of the large scale paintings in the show celebrate the lives of Michael Sandy, Lawrence King and Ronnie Paris, three youth of color who were victims of hate crimes; others are inspired by the writings of African American LGBT writers Audre Lorde and Richard Bruce Nugent.

The exhibit runs from Friday, August 22 to October 31. The CAAM is open Monday – Friday 10:00 – 5:00. For more information, call the CAAM at 423-266-8658 or visit www.jhmckissic.artistportfolio.net or www.caamhistory.com. To bring the exhibit to your own community, e-mail James McKissic at jhmckissic@gmail.com.

The African American Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa has taken a severe hit from the flooding. Of the 1,700 items in the Cedar Rapids museum's collection, about half are soggy, said Executive Director Thomas Moore. About 5 feet of water from the Cedar River damaged two murals and ruined 90 percent of the books.

"We took a direct hit," Moore said. "The permanent exhibit was devastated."

Moore and his team rescued most of the temporary exhibit about George Washington Carver, including artifacts on loan from Iowa State University, the Tuskegee Institute and the inventor's birthplace in Missouri. The staff saved Carver's original plant specimens, his drawings, some baskets he wove, and a few small items he embroidered and knitted.

Curators and conservation experts from around the country have offered to help, and potential donors are still waiting to see what the museum needs.

Fundraising is a perennial challenge for all nonprofits, but Moore suspects the flooding disaster is so extreme that supporters will readily reach for their checkbooks.

"Capital money is usually easier to raise," he said. Since the building opened five years ago, the museum has established more credibility and attracted more donors from throughout the state.

Fundraising "used to be really, really tough. And now it's just tough," he said. Please contact the website for further information or to make a contribution.

Submitted By John Keasler

Art of Pride is currently seeking fine artists for the 2008 San Diego (CA) Pride Festival. Festival is July 19-20, 2008. We are looking for painters, illustrators, photogs and some scultors for both space rental and juried show.

Art of Pride strives to encourage understanding among all people by providing a format for LGBT artists and their allies.

On July 21-22, 2007, many of us participated in the San Diego LGBT Pride weekend. Twenty-six diverse artists presented their works to the majority of the 40,000 people who walked into the Festival gates.

We hope our site provides a venue for a diversity of crafts, media and styles.

Find more information at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artofpride/ or write artofpride@sbcglobal.net

Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture @ The National Portait Gallery

With brightly-colored graffiti murals lining the gallery hallways, and riffs on 17th century Dutch painting, the National Portrait Gallery has brought a breath of fresh air to the often traditional Smithsonian Institution. Last Friday, just weeks after hanging the Stephen Colbert portrait, the NPG opened RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture, a show that’s bound to appeal to a wide-ranging audience. But RECOGNIZE! isn't only about trying to bring a younger audience to a museum — the works on display are powerful evocations of American culture that have a broad appeal both in terms of message and artistic merit. From subtle black and white hip hop performance shots by David Sheinbaum to an ode by poet Nikki Giovanni illustrated with an installation by Shinique Smith, the exhibit captures and gives insight into a cultural movement that is essential to understanding American culture.

RECOGNIZE! is part of the Portraiture Now series, which focuses on contemporary artists and new ways of making portraits. This exhibit helps illustrate these parameters — Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp are graffiti artists, who write under a pseudonym, or a “tag.” As the wall text explains, a tag is like a self-portrait, and artists perform “without a public audience.” Their portraits may not be traditional, but they're a vibrant statement about contemporary life.

The portraits by Kehinde Wiley all but steal the show — Wiley depicts Ice T as Napoleon in the famous Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres painting of the emperor. Ice T wields a scepter and sits on a robe, but wears a baseball cap in lieu of a crown. There’s also a portrait of LL Cool J in which he’s sitting in a chair against a patterned backdrop that is characteristic of Wiley’s paintings. The portrait is based on the John Singer Sargent portrait of John D. Rockefeller, because LL thinks of himself as a modern-day Rockefeller.

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Outstanding Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Major Artists Featured in Swann Galleries'

New York, NY (BlackNews.com) - On Tuesday, February 19 Swann

Elizabeth Catlett, Head, painted terra cotta sculpture, 1947. This is the artist's first terra cotta work to come to auction. Estimate: $180,000 to $200,000.

Galleries will conduct the third auction organized by their new African-American Fine Art department. The sale offers 250 paintings, drawings, collages, prints and sculpture from notable collections and estates, and illustrates the full panorama of achievement by African-American artists--from Henry Ossawa Tanner to Faith Ringgold. Many of the works are recognizable because they have been included in important museum exhibitions and illustrated in catalogues and monographs.

There is a wonderful assembly of early and important artwork by Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas, including Emperor Jones, gouache on illustration board,1926, one of few known studies for the well-known woodcut series (estimate: $30,000 to $50,000); Young Man in Repose, oil on canvas, circa 1934-5, a poignant work from the artist's New York period ($30,000 to $50,000); a beautiful Haitian Landscape, oil on canvas, one of a few paintings from the artist's 1938 travels on a Rosenwald Foundation fellowship ($50,000 to $75,000); and Building More Stately Mansions, oil on canvas board, 1944, a smaller variant of one of his most famous paintings at Fisk University ($100,000 to $150,000). The first-ever retrospective of Douglas's work is currently on tour throughout the United States.

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A rich exhibition explores blacks' influence on Mexican culture.

By Agustin Gurza

CONSIDERING all the recent speculation about hostility between blacks and Latinos, you have to cringe when you hear what happened to historian Christopher West on a working trip south of the border four years ago. The African American academic was helping research the influence of tourism on children in Isla Mujeres, an idyllic island near Cancun, when a local boy on the street threw a piece of pan dulce at him.

The insult (not the first he had encountered) might be seen as more evidence of that racial animosity, currently fueling the notion that some Latinos are cool to Sen. Barack Obama because he's black. But West considered the gesture an anomaly and went on to shoot some hoops with his Mexican friends and colleagues.

In fact, the historian says he's been accepted as family in some parts of Mexico, thanks to his wife, Ilda Jimenez, a Mexican American anthropologist he met when they were students at USC. The union of the two communities is reflected in their surname, which they changed to Jimenez y West. Today, as history curator at the California African American Museum, Christopher Jimenez y West continues to explore the often overlooked cultural connections between the country's two largest minorities. This week, he was busy preparing for the opening of a groundbreaking exhibition, "The African Presence in México: From Yanga to the Present," which celebrates what is called the Third Root of Mexican culture, adding African to the mix of European and native Indian.

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By Diane Heilenman

Kevin Cole, a 48-year-old African-American artist based in Atlanta for 22 years, came to Louisville recently to select the 14th Annual African American Art Exhibit, which opens Tuesday at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Cole said in a telephone interview from his studio that he was familiar with the Louisville event: One of his works was selected to be in it in 1998.

"One of the most important things about the exhibit is it gives African Americans a way to show their work," he said.

That said, Cole added that this aspect of the exhibit is not all that is important.

There has been "a big surge" in "market respect" of African-American art in the past 10 years. Cole pointed to the example of African-American artist Kara Walker, who is lauded as, simply, a contemporary American artist exploring race and gender, identity, violence and propriety with takeoffs on the Victorian black silhouette.

"All of a sudden, the content of work by African-American artists is OK," he said

Cole counts "a lot of ballplayers," such as Michael Jordan and Darrell Walker, among his 750 collectors, also including the Yale University Art Gallery; Tampa Museum; Corcoran Gallery Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Dayton (Ohio) Institute of Art; and the College Board of New York City.

It used to be, Cole said, that black artists "were not able to show (in the mainstream art world) if it was specific 'black content.' " That no longer necessarily is true. And the opposite side of the coin, that a black artist could be "too white" and yet "too black," is shifting, as well.

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A Young Back Man Painting With A Vision

I had the privilege of meeting Reduell Crowder. He's an 18 year old black male in the state of Tennessee. A senior in high school fulfilling a dream as a Singer and Artist. Reduell is a true Leo to his heart. His love and passion to paint free lance for the last five years and his music as a singer for two years in R & B.

Reduell had a ruff life as a child coming up. He was raised by his mother who was at the time on drugs heavily;  then later he move in with his father which he really dreaded.

He and his father were not close at all. Unfortunately they never bonded like most people. Those three years were hell for Reduell. The only good thing that happen in his life is his mother did finally get drug free and as of today she is still drug free.

By Regina Hackett

As many have said before me, Roberta Smith's tribute to Martin Puryear on the occasion of his 30-year retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art is a pleasure to read. Tyler Green called it a delight, high praise coming from him, and asked us to imagine the New York Times' arts section without her.

I can't imagine contemporary criticism without her no-nonsense, feet-on-the ground declaratives. Her style is like clear glass. You can see right through it to her subject. She leaves poetics to others and never feels the need to tap dance for attention. Plus, she knows plenty and can clarify complicated ideas without distorting them.

Kara Walker, whose eponymous show is subtitled 'My Complement, My Enemy, My Opressor, My Love.' Her work is on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art through Feb. 3.

BY ARIELLA BUDICK

In the blistering art of Kara Walker, prim silhouettes wallow in crude sadism, pantomiming the tragic history of race relations in the United States. The 37-year-old African-American art star channels her rage into highly refined installations, films, drawings and paintings that reveal how the shadow of slavery still haunts American culture. Morbid and darkly funny, she delves into the ways blacks and whites alike have been traumatized and twisted by their cruel and mutually destructive history.

An unsettling and intense retrospective of Walker's work is now at the Whitney, inviting us to plunge with her into violence, bestiality and seething passions. She looks back with anger at life in the antebellum South - at the rape, torture, murder and suicide that underlay romantic fantasies of plantation life.

Painter Aaron Douglas has been called 'the father of black American art.' His work exudes hope and optimism.

Aaron Douglas's paintings and illustrations pulsate with the energy and optimism of the Harlem Renaissance, that extraordinary flowering of African-American culture that burst forth in New York in the 1920s and 1930s. While he was not the first black artist to find inspiration in his African heritage, he was the first to consistently blend African imagery with contemporary subject matter and in modernist forms. Douglas, who has been called "the father of black American art," became the premier visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance.

Today, his is not as familiar a name as other luminaries from that era, such as Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, or Zora Neale Hurston. But the organizers of "Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist," a retrospective exhibition at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, hope to bring the artist and his work to a wider audience.

The exhibition is the first major retrospective since the artist's death in 1979 and brings together nearly 100 works that span much of his distinguished career.

Spencer Museum of Art presents Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, on view from September 8, 2007 through December 2, 2007, organized by the Spencer Museum of Art at The University of Kansas, curated by Susan Earle, curator of European and American art and coordinated by Stephanie Knappe, doctoral candidate in art history.

The exhibition and catalogue are made possible through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, with additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Office of the Chancellor, The Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist presents the first nationally touring retrospective of the work of Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), the foremost visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance. A native of Topeka, Kansas, and a socially conscious artist, Douglas vividly captured the spirit of his time and established a new black aesthetic and utopian vision.

 

OPENS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2007, 6-9pm
"AMERICAN CUISINE"
New work by RAMEKON O'ARWISTERS (SuperART Hero)
Through OCTOBER 14, 2007

Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco
509 Ellis Street (btw. Leavenworth and Hyde) SF, CA 94109 http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/content/view/223/51/
Gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday, Noon - 5 PM

Contact: Darryl Smith or Laurie Lazer Directors 415.255.5971